Helios is a musical exploration of our solar system. The libretto is inspired by the Greek and Roman gods for which the planets are named, the science of each planetary body, and the faith in unanswered questions we have as humans. The idea for this piece was born on a tour with Cantus back in 2013. I was thinking about how to combine my passions together in music, and I thought I should write a choral cycle based on the planets. Over the course of the next 6 years I researched the solar system and started to piece together the libretto movement by movement. I couldn’t find the support to fund the whole cycle in one commission, so I started to write individual movements for smaller commissions along the way. In the spring of 2018 I was talking with Matt Culloton about having it on The Singers’ 15th anniversary season, even though it wasn’t finished or funded. He told me, “if you write it, I’ll program it.” So I jumped the rest of the way in. At that point I had written four movements, and I would complete a fifth the next fall.

The libretto contains poetry commissioned for this piece alongside translations of ancient writing and previously published poetry. Each movement’s text is inspired by the planet for which it is named, and Helios itself has an overarching theme of control. In our lives, some things are within our control and others are not. Helios asks us to analyze these situations and be active in finding ways where we can choose. We have the choice to point our lives in a certain way, to decide who we want to be and how we want to live.

In “Pluto” we stand at the border of chaos, ready to jump in. Patricia Monaghan has us believe that chaos can be beautiful, that it offers us more exciting choices than control. The music brings us into chaos immediately, each section in their own rhythmic pattern, surging and combining to make something greater.

“Neptune” offers us a familiar story of a father intervening in his two sons’ conflict. As a father I can emphasize with Neptune’s rage at the chaos his sons are causing but I also love the description of how he controls them: “He sways their passions with his words and soothes their hearts.” A great way to parent. Turbulent trills and glissandi abound as the winds combat each other, and the contrasting homophony later delivers Neptune’s words.

Patricia Monaghan’s poetry embodies the cold isolation of Uranus. The axial tilt of Uranus is almost parallel to the solar plane, meaning that instead of spinning like a top, it rolls around the sun in it’s orbit, causing an alternating 42 years of sunlight then darkness at the poles. This isolating coldness is what inspired this poem choice and the paired quote from Shakespeare. So many people feel isolated, alone, unloved, and they feel as if their fate is not in their own hands.

Tony Silvestri uses Saturn as an autobiographical account of his childhood, how he gazed at Saturn and unlocked his wonder for the universe. The movement opens with a solo trio, more intimate and personal than any texture we’ve heard so far. When the choir enters the heavens crack open, and wonder is upon us. The choir lays down a familiar harmonic progression often found in popular music, rooting this movement here on Earth, but the text explores the many wonders that occur in the heavens.

The title character does not appear in “Jupiter,” but instead the movement is sung from the perspective of Juno, Jupiter’s wife. Silvestri has written a rage aria with a powerful twist. Instead of only proclaiming her rage, Juno marks Jupiter’s beautiful image as his famous red spot - a continuous storm, the largest in the solar system. In “Comet” Jupiter asks Venus to take the spirit of Julius Caesar and turn him into a star. She agrees and carries his spirit up to the heavens, feeling it transform into a fiery comet. In ancient Rome, Caesar’s Comet was seen for 7 days in 44 BC. The repeating glissandi in the bass section are a Shepard tone, giving an unending sense of rising motion. Are we able to control the legacy we leave behind? We cannot transform into a comet, but we can choose what we wish to leave behind, how we want to be remembered.

Writing a piece inspired by Mars offered a much-needed exploration of how we view masculinity. The Roman god of war is usually portrayed in a very aggressive, stereotypically masculine way. To me, the way culture tends to convey traditional masculinity is not usually the truth but a mask we wear to show bravado, toughness and confidence.

When the 2004 Mars rover Spirit broke a wheel, it ended up dragging the wheel across the surface of the planet, scratching the surface to discover silica underneath. This discovery pointed to the fact that hot water once flowed on or under the surface of Mars. It’s such a great metaphor for our sense of manliness - that as our outer layer is scarred we reveal something more gentle underneath. Bill Reichard’s wonderful poem explores all of this and offers what I think is a more complete honest view of what it means to be a man.

“Moon” has a mysterious feel to it: an exploration of sound, texture and environment. We hear a brilliant sense of light in the climax, even as a mere reflection of the true source.

Like “Saturn,” “Earth” is rooted on the ground. While both depict the wonder of the heavens, Newhouse’s poem reminds us how special our humanity is. Humans are a product of the only known cradle of life in the universe, and we alone get to experience complex emotion.

Venus has been seen in the night sky throughout most of human history, and in Julia Klatt Singer’s words “we feel a strong attachment to her—she rises for you, lingers for you, wants you to see her, notice her, want her to stay in the sky. And since she is the second brightest thing up there, next to the sun, she does linger, stay.” Venus orbits in the opposite direction from all other planets in our system, moving against expectations, showing how powerful we can be if we choose.

An interlude illustrates the value of inward growth and change, contrary to the expectation that change is always visible and in a prescribed direction. Self-discovery and awareness lead us into “Mercury,” where a limited pitch set opens the piece, eventually yielding to a wide palette of color and harmony. We are in charge of our own limits. We can make the pendulum shift in as many degrees of freedom as we can imagine. In a universe where chaos is beautiful and breeds life, we can still control our own balance and destiny.

The sun is our greatest source of energy. Our journey through the solar system ends as we finally are drawn into its warmth, enveloped in family, community wonder and light. We are home.

- Timothy C. Takach, 2019