SUNFLOWER STUDIES for Wind Studies by NICOLE PIUNNO (USA, 1985)

[#291] February 17, 2025

2023 | Large Wind Ensemble | Grade 5 | 25’ – 30’ | Symphony

Premiered by ASU Wind Ensemble conducted by Jason Caslor on Sep 27, 2023

in Tempe, Arizona, USA

Sunflower Studies by American composer and trumpeter Nicole Piunno is our Composition of the Week.

Sunflower Studies was premiered on September 27, 2023, by the Arizona State University (Tempe) Wind Ensemble, with Jason Caslor conducting.

The work was a finalist in the National Band Association’s William Revelli Award 2024.

It has a duration of 25 minutes, and it is cast in five movements.:

1. Waiting for the Brightness of Tomorrow

2. No Blue Without Yellow

3. Interlude

4. Seeking the Golden Light

5. Broken Colours

Sunflower Studies is scored for a large Wind Ensemble setting, including Contra-Bassoon, Soprano Saxophone, Contra-Bass, Harp, and 7 percussion parts.

The music is available on rental at Metaphor Music Works

“Sunflower Studies, a symphony in five movements for wind ensemble, explores Vincent Van Gogh’s love for sunflowers combined with my own love of the sunflower. The titles for movement one and movement four come from the beautiful nature of the sunflower itself, while the titles for movement two and movement five come from Van Gogh’s painting style. These movements are connected in the middle by a short interlude. Many movements incorporate the hymn tune Tell Me the Old, Old Story. This was one of Van Gogh’s favorite hymns, and the melody and lyrics have grown on me as I have gotten to know it. The hymn has a child-like quality to it which to me represents a sincere faith. Van Gogh said he wanted his paintings “to say something comforting as music is comforting ... something of the eternal.” This melody also represents that source of comfort which the sunflower can bring to a person. I learned a lot about Van Gogh and his work from reading the letters Vincent wrote to his brother. Vincent told his brother he wanted to make a series of paintings of sunflowers that would contain broken yellows against blue backgrounds. He described this series of paintings to his brother, “The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue and yellow.” His style of combining dark and light elements together on a canvas is similar to my style as a composer and this makes me feel as though I found a kindred spirit in Vincent. Sunflowers are vibrant, beautiful and sturdy flowers. Sunflowers had great significance for Van Gogh: they represented gratitude. In a similar fashion, for me sunflowers exemplify faith.”

Program Notes by Nicole Piunno

Dr. Nicole Piunno holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition and a Master of Music degree in theory pedagogy at Michigan State University, 2014. Her composition teachers were Ricardo Lorenz and Charles Ruggiero. She earned a Master of Music degree in composition at Central Michigan University, studying with David Gillingham. She has also worked with Jason Bahr, David Ludwig, and Tony Zilincik. Nicole earned a Bachelor of Music degree in music education from Ohio Wesleyan University, where her emphasis was on trumpet.

Dr. Piunno views music as a vehicle for seeing and experiencing the realities of life. Her music often reflects the paradoxes in life and how these seemingly opposites are connected as they weave together. Her harmonic language and use of counterpoint mirrors the complexity of our world by acknowledging lightness and darkness, past and present, beauty and brokenness, confinement and freedom, spiritual and physical, life and death.

Her music has recently been performed by the Principal Brass Quintet of the New York Philharmonic, Athena Brass Band, University of Akron Faculty Brass Quintet, and the Michigan State University Symphony Band.

Dr. Piunno was the winner of the 2018 Female Composer Competition, Beta Omicron Chapter, Kappa Kappa Psi. She teaches in the city schools of Dublin, Ohio.

Other works for winds:

· Letters form the Travelling Doll (2021) for chamber wind ensemble

· Resound (2021)

· Catharsis (2020)

· Postcard form Sequoia (2019)

· Concertino for Trumpet (2018)

· Beauty Broken (2015)

· Through Wind and Whispers (2014)