Composed 2025

Duration: 7 minutes | Grade 5 Concert Band

The idea of death has been talked about for generations. Each civilization, each culture, and each religion had its own impressions of it. Much so, the lore of a “grim reaper”, this story of a soul-reaping presence, passed between people and legend, has fascinated and compelled us to learn more about what happens after the last hour. In this symphonic poem, listeners embark on a narrative that represents the scarier, mythic impression of death. Combining commanding melodies with chilling orchestration, unique percussion, and asymmetric rhythm, the music exemplifies the darker notions of the grim reaper, sadness, fear, confusion, and madness, in an attempt to understand the preconceptions of this daunting entity. And with the famous Catholic hymn synonymous with death, “Dies Irae”, playing out in our mind, listeners are led by the hand towards a climactic end of this composition, as if we finally come face to face with the reaper itself.