“Rise Up, O Flame” is a simple short tune some might recognize as a Girl Scout campfire song or perhaps as a teaching tool to demonstrate the minor mode. At over 500 years old there are a variety of ways a person may have first heard the tune, but to me and a few hundred other North Carolinians, “Rise Up, O Flame” is synonymous with a summer month away at Governor’s School. The program has been enriching, enlightening, and educating students since 1963 in subjects ranging from mathematics to social sciences to dance. Once a student and twice a staff member, I wanted to give back to the Instrumental Music program at Governor’s School East with a piece to call their own. What better subject to base the piece on than the very song the site director has been teaching the students for years now?

Ascendant Embers charts a student’s day from the quiet of the morning, through the hustle and bustle of class time, to evening relaxation on the quad, and finally the excitement of a Saturday night dance. The Instrumental Music program at the Governor’s School endeavors to introduce young players to potentially unfamiliar sounds or techniques. Ascendant Embers contains aleatoric passages for the woodwinds, their rising runs evoking embers floating off an open flame. The choir that appears in the “evening” references both the excellent Choral Music program at the Governor’s School and the collective community the students form in such a short time. The word “ascendant” doesn’t actually mean “rising” in the literal sense; rather, “ascendant” refers to a rise in power or influence. All those brilliant young minds then, the future leaders, thinkers, and artists of my state, are the ascendant embers rising to meet their boundless potential.