Saturn: A Cross Section

instrumentation: orchestra (3030/4221/3perc/hp/strings)
duration: 5 minutes
written in: 2023–24, revised 2025
written for: Toledo Symphony Orchestra

Saturn: A Cross Section is part of ...of the spheres..., a collaborative work by nine composers associated with the ADJ•ective New Music collective.  The other eight composers — Hong-Da Chin, Robert McClure, Anne Neikirk, Andrea Reinkemeyer, Jamie Lee Sampson, Andrew Martin Smith, Cynthia Van Maanen and Daijana Wallace — have written pieces depicting the other major celestial bodies in our Solar System.

The different sections of Saturn represent the different kinds of materials and textures you would encounter if you started at the center of the planet and moved outward along its equatorial plane at a rate of 500 km/s:

The core (mm. 1–10): hot, dense, solid rock and ice
Metallic hydrogen (mm. 11–20): a thick liquid layer
Molecular hydrogen (mm. 21–40): a thin liquid layer transitioning to gas, with diamond rain
The atmosphere (m. 41): clouds of water and ammonia, with a giant hexagonal storm at the north pole
Space (mm. 42–44): emptiness
The D ring (mm. 45–49): a faint ring with spiral wave patterns
The C ring (mm. 50–62): faint and dark, with two gaps
The B ring (mm. 63–79): bright and massive, with seasonal dust spokes
The Cassini Division (mm. 80–82): an area of low density, whose inner edge is in 2:1 orbital resonance with Saturn's moon Mimas
The A ring (mm. 83–92): a dark ring with spiral density waves, acted on by the 7:6 orbital resonance of Saturn's moons Janus and Epimetheus
The Roche Division (mm. 93–95): dusty and low density
The F ring (m. 96): the outermost major ring, small and rapidly changing