Joni Greene (b. 1981) is an American composer based in Austin, Texas. She has written a wide variety of music for a range of ensembles, from bands and orchestras to chamber groups and operas. Trained at Indiana University (BM and MM degrees), her principal teachers included Michael Gandolfi, Sven-David Sandstrom, Kevin Puts, Don Freund, David Dzubay, Claude Baker, and Rafael Hernandez. Her music has been performed extensively, and has won her several awards, notably in the Frank Ticheli Composition Contest. Greene emphasizes instrumental color and its transitions in her wind band music, with melodies and textures often passed between sections. Some of this approach emerges naturally from her synesthesia. Learn more about her and her music at her website, the Wind Repertory Project, and the Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music. Also, check her out on the One Track podcast.
Greene wrote Shattering Stars for the Next Music Project in 2023, one of several pieces of hers inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope. Her program notes read as follows:
Shattering Stars is part of my “James Webb Space Telescope Series” which features music based on images from the most advanced space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Orbiting 1 million miles from Earth, the JWST far surpasses previous telescopes such as Hubble. Shattering Stars is a journey through the lens of JWST towards the youngest supernova ever observed in our galaxy. At only 11,000 light-years from Earth, Cassiopeia A contains supernova materials of stardust and heavy elements.
In order to present a soundscape illustrative of the process of a supernova, Shattering Stars explores instrumental color and light. As a composer with synesthesia, I see light and color when I hear sound creating a compositional process I call organized color. While it is common for middle school works to feature singable melodies and a hierarchy of ensemble section roles, Shattering Stars uses small melodic cells that build upon each other and pass through the concert band. Everyone has an equal role to play as the idea of shooting light from afar comes closer into view. As players progress through the work, light intensity is portrayed through the stacking of short rhythmic and melodic ideas. As described by NASA, the JWST captures “mottled filaments of bright pink studded with clumps and knots within the supernova.” In Shattering Stars each instrument creates a unique color which when combined with a four-note repeating 16th note pattern, illustrates the idea of chasing light, which finally explodes, shattering its star by the final measure.
In the score, she also asks:
What are some science questions that Cassiopeia may help answer?
Where does cosmic dust come from? Observations have found that even very young galaxies in the early universe are suffused with massive quantities of dust. It’s difficult to explain the origins of this dust without invoking supernovae, which spew large quantities of heavy elements (the building blocks of dust) across space.
Supernovae like the one that formed Cassiopeia A are crucial for life as we know it. They spread elements like the calcium we find in our bones and the iron in our blood across interstellar space, seeding new generations of stars and planets.
Take a listen (and follow along in the score):
For more on Shattering Stars, visit Greene’s website, Murphy Music, and J. W. Pepper.