Jennifer Bellor

My composition North Star originally for flute choir was arranged for the Mars Hill University Woodwind Ensemble by Misty Theisen:

University of Redlands Saxophone Studio produced a video performing Skylark Lullaby:

The Henderson Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Alexandra Arrieche, commissioned me to write Sky Bells. For more information about the work, please click HERE

Program note:

My inspiration comes from many places, visual elements related to memories, dreams, art, animation, even poetry.  Sky Bells was inspired by a hike I took on the Cathedral Lake Trail in Aspen, Colorado. I remember the blue lake sparkling in the sunlight enclosed by the mountains.  I went back to a piece I had written in 2009 about this hike, Celestial Surroundings for brass, pipe organ and percussion, and found even more inspiration to build upon my original composition. The initial brass theme from Celestial Surroundings gave life to this work which I called Sky Bells.

This piece shows something vast and unchanging juxtaposed against the tumultuousness of passing time. Imagine a large gothic cathedral on top of clouds, bells ringing, remaining firm and rooted. Yet, as time passes, light turns to darkness and back to light, everything in the periphery grows and dies and continues the same cycle, but the cathedral remains unaffected and the bells keep ringing.

Check out this beautiful music video! Visual Artists Inka Hannula and Teemu Raudaskoski produced this artwork in reaction to the miniature version of my piece “Time’s Arrest” performed by Niko Ronimus. 

Niko gave the Finnish premiere of the piece in Nokia back in October, and then he introduced me to Inka and Teemu (from Tampere, Finland) over a Zoom meeting earlier this year. We all talked about how this pandemic has been motivating us to explore new collaborations, and this gorgeous art work they created, which interprets both my music and Niko’s performance of it, is an example. I hope we collaborate again on new projects, and can’t wait to travel to Finland at some point in the future to meet them in person! 

https://www.inkahannula.com/selected-work

www.teemuraudaskoski.com

“A Song of Flight” performed by the Heartland Marimba Orchestra

Heartland Marimba arranged my song for soprano and piano to feature eleven performers (marimba, vibraphone, and glockenspiel). This was such a cool experience for me to hear this song reinvented by this group, and it has inspired me to think about how many more of my songs that can be adapted to fit a variety of instrumentations.

The performance features: Chad Beebe, Jaime Esposito, Josh Fulford, Hunter Gross, Tyler Marvin, Joe Millea, Jordan Nielsen, Ryan Pearson, Alyssa Resh, Matt Silverberg, and Lauren Teel.

Here is the newly revised version of my composition Celestial Surroundings.

3 Trumpets in C, 1 Horn in F, 2 Trombones, *Percussion, Pipe Organ

*Optional percussion: The percussion part is optional, and all or some of the part can be played given the availability of the following instruments:

Tubular Bells, Suspended cymbal, Glockenspiel

Flexible instrumentation: Contact info@jenniferbellor.com.

MIDI demo with score of the new version:

Duration: 7 minutes

Celestial Surroundings (2009) was premiered by organist Nicole Marane and brass players from the Atlanta Symphony at Peachtree United Methodist church in Atlanta, GA February 8, 2009.

Here is a recording of the original version from the premiere:

I’m excited to share the video recordings of my piece Of Maker and Movement performed by Clocks in Motion percussion quartet. These are videos from their concert March 10th at UNLV on the Nextet new music series concert: