Orange Alert (2006)

Orange Alert

Timpani (5)

ORANGE ALERT (High Risk of Terrorist Attack) is the most overtly programmatic of the set. Inspired specifically by the events of 9/11 it is structured around a series of explosive figures that not only represent the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and field in Shanksville, PA but the shattering of our innocence and sense of security. A highlight of the work is a fugue and a sense of impending chaos that reaches its climax at the end of the piece with the exhortation for the player to “go crazy”.

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Orange Alert for Solo Timpani from

~ Homeland Security Suite ~

Program Notes

THE genesis of Homeland Security Suite started with my composition of Orange Alert for solo timpani. At the time, the country was actually at “Orange Alert” and I was amazed that a color normally associated with such happy and positive images represented such a state of heightened anxiety. After it was published by HoneyRock, I thought it might be interesting to set all of the colors represented in the Homeland Security Advisory System: Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange and Red.

IT’S ironic that until 9/11, 2001 the vast majority of Americans weren’t even aware that an advisory system existed, let alone what all the colors meant. A number of questions came to mind. Was America ever at the lowest level, Green Alert? What was the symbolism embodied in a system of terror that uses the colors of the rainbow as its visual representation? How could I take these visceral images and transfer them to an art form based not on color, but sound, and create an arc over a sustained period of time that didn’t feel overly repetitive?

TO begin, I chose a more abstract rhythmical and harmonic style and a wide variety of instrumentation. Within each movement I embedded a number of more literal musical “signposts.” For example, toward the end of Green Alert I used the steel drum to capture the sense of joy and freedom that a lack of threat might engenderthe tempo ironically marked “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” In Blue Alert I included a number of musical fragments referencing New York. After I completed all five levels I decided to add an epilogue in the form of a new level: White Alert – white being the color of light that embodies all others and yet appears without any. Whatever political statement I’ve attempted to embody in this work can best be understood by reflecting on my setting of this last, and truly final, movement.

Robert S. Cohen October 25, 2007

Robert S. Cohen