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This work was a finalist in the Tampa Bay Symphony International Composition Competition in 2025. Conducted here by Mark Sforzini and performed by the Tampa Bay Symphony.

Program note for High Flight by John Rotar

My Overture High Flight takes it’s title and inspiration from the famous poem of the same name by war poet John Gillespie Magee Jr. who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Though there is a sombreness to the circumstances of the poem's creation, especially given that Magee dies at just 19 in a mid-air collision, the poem itself feels ecstatic, even carefree in its description of the freedom of flying. And this overture reflects on this feeling, that joyous exhilaration of having broken free from earthly constraints to soar through the sky. And to me this poem reminds us that, no matter how much terror or hardship may beset us, there is still so much beauty and joy and fun to be found, and finding it is they key to preserving our humanity.

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


Artwork: Airplane in the Sky with Clouds Heather Lee Chan