Orange Skies by Esther Ling
Composer Esther Ling shares some background & the process behind this month's featured piece.
What was the starting point for this composition? Commission, request, opportunity, collaboration, parameters, etc.
"Orange Skies" is a fire-themed, dramatic storytelling piece for SSAA choir with piano and percussion (drum), which starts with gentle 2-part singing, and eventually builds to an exciting 4-part.
When the director of the Peace Region Girls Choir, Rosanne Mayer, mentioned she was looking for a challenging and longer duration piece for her students to learn, I took on the opportunity.
For me, I drew a lot of inspiration from the Jasper wildfires that occurred in 2023. I remember the pictures of orange glow against the dark skies all across the news, and I wondered how frightening it must have been for young children to be woken up in the middle of the night, to a fiery, smoky scene as they evacuate their home.
In crafting the lyrics, I had wanted to try incorporating a different language. As the theme of fire can carry a diverse set of stories and emotions in different cultural settings, I decided to do some research on indigenous Fire teachings and storytelling traditions. I learnt a great many things about the Woodland Cree’s culture and heritage.
I started first with crafting the lyrics, which usually begins as free-writing phrases, and slowly evolving into a more structured form as I determine how I’d like to sing it. I hum melodic ideas into my audio recorder, then I bring it to the piano and begin crafting it thoroughly with harmonic progressions and singing the ideas. I do all of this in my audio recording and when it is ready to be recorded as a demo in my DAW, I begin arranging it for a choral piece, experimenting with the vocal parts and layers.
What did you enjoy most about the process of composing this piece?
As a songwriter myself, I enjoy seeing how the word scribbles in my notebook take shape into a full song; how a simple idea gets pieced together like a puzzle over time, and eventually becomes whole. I do my best to sing every part and try everything vocally with the piano to sketch the composition in a DAW; this process helps me connect emotionally to a piece.
I enjoyed the challenge of crafting this piece to be suitable for children to sing, yet still be able to execute the chaos a fire-theme piece can bring. I love bringing drama, and writing differently, outside of traditional rules, and so I really enjoyed exploring making things fun for choristers to sing as well as delivering an impactful performance.
It is most rewarding, as a composer, to learn that choristers connected with the music, and enjoyed learning it. When an audience member shares that they were in tears and emotionally touched by it, that’s when I know I have successfully completed my role as a storyteller in this song, through its music and message.
What were some of the challenges to consider and work through?
One challenge I faced with writing this piece was incorporating fire sounds that would be suitable for a youth choir to sing. Rosanne and I had exchanged a couple of video recordings of adult choral performances we found online as inspirations. As some of the vocal techniques could be quite advanced for youth singers to execute and express with confidence, I had to be mindful of the level of difficulty, in addition to the complexities of arranging it.
Instead of having a full 4-part song for the choristers to sing, I thought it would be more approachable to start off with a gentle 2-part, introducing the characters of the story, mother and child. It then increases in complexity, moving into a 3-part chorus with a brief, haunting a capella section, and finally a 4-part powerful finale section.
I also knew from the start, I wanted drum sounds with this piece. It was crucial to have a drum supplement the suspense drawn from the dramatic music. While I used taiko drum sounds, which sounded perfect in the DAW; in reality, it is expensive (and rare) to source such an instrument for a community youth choir! Fortunately, with the help of my mentor who is a percussionist, we were able to come up with various options, and we achieved the intended low-pitched drum sound with a large size tom that is easily available from any regular drum kit.
Performance details:
Orange Skies was premiered by the senior choir “Viva” of the Peace Region Girls Choir on 30 May 2026 at the concert, “An Afternoon of Song: Earth, Fire, Wind, Water” in Grande Prairie, AB.
