Martin Hebel

• Born: 1990, New Haven, Connecticut

Radiant Pillars

Six-time American Prize winner and 2020 recipient of the Presser Foundation’s Graduate Music Award, composer Martin Hebel works at the intersection of music, advocacy and interdisciplinary collaboration. He responds to challenges of today’s global community with socially conscious compositions exploring the common ground of shared experiences—such as inequity and conflict—to spark positive change through music. Hebel’s current project, Uplifting Unheard Voices, amplifies the voices of migrants and refugees he interviewed by setting their words to music. Hebel’s portfolio includes orchestral and wind ensemble works, instrumental and vocal chamber music, and multi-media compositions involving video projection and electronics, as well as collaborations with a diverse range of other artists. 

Composer’s Note: Radiant Pillars is an abstract reflection on two scientific observations that expanded our understanding of the universe: the Hubble telescope image, “Pillars of Creation,” showing stars forming from massive clouds of gas and dust, and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the edge of the universe still expanding from the Big Bang.

Radiant Pillars begins with light, gently reverberating motives and delicate fragments that contrast with darker, colossal columns, illuminated by cascades of vivid, intense color. Bright, vibrant flourishes follow, building a torrent of energy as Radiant Pillars culminates in an immense explosion. Finally, clear, gentle fragments return, echoing as they fade away.