Turbine (2006) John Mackey

Commissioned by the Southeastern Conference Band Directors Association
World premiere February 24, 2006, at the Southeast Regional CBDNA convention on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble, conducted by Cody Birdwell.

I'm afraid of flying. This piece was my way of dealing with that.
The first three minutes are rough, grinding, and tense, as the jet engine builds up speed (through texture, not tempo), and eventually goes racing down the runway. Once the jet takes off, though, the music changes, and we realize that flying really isn't so bad. In fact, it can be beautiful once the plane is airborne. But in the back of my mind, I'm always aware that we're up quite high -- and our lives (and that beauty) depend on these massive pieces of machinery. If that machine (in this case, the percussion) should fail, we'd all be in serious trouble, so I just keep my knuckles gripped to the armrest, look out at the clouds, think pretty thoughts, and hope that the pulse of that engine never lets up.