Killing Horizon (percussion septet) by Lane Harder published on 2012-02-09T05:16:08Z Performed by the UT Percussion Group - Lane Harder, conductor A Killing Horizon is mathematically related to an event horizon of a black hole. Named after Wilhelm Killing, a killing horizon is determined by the surface gravity of an object. I have often composed motorhythmic pieces for percussion ensemble, always keeping the smallest pulse unit (the sixteenth note) at a constant tempo. This piece, on the other hand, morphs many tempos into others, sometimes replacing one pulse unit with another. There are small and large sections that repeat; theoretically, some of these sections could become infinite loops that constantly speed up to the tempo at which the speeding up began. Some of the music, then, could remain in a constant state of speeding up and in a constant state of stasis. This element of the piece was inspired by a remark made by Stephen Hawking who said that, if he could choose the method by which he would die, he would like to die traveling through a black hole because, as he crossed the event horizon, he would be able to see the past and the future at the same time. Paradoxically, he added, this could not work because he would not have enough time to do both. The sparse opening section uses a rhythmic canon that becomes a texture (in the tradition of Gorecki and Ligeti). The second section uses the totalist technique of allowing the music in the foreground to “mash against the grid” of a constant pulse, though the pulse often disintegrates and reintegrates into the texture. The final section (and climax) is drawn from the Native American drumming tradition of several drummers playing one large drum in unison. Genre Percussion