Airborne

“Airborne” is the sole movement from Suspended by Alex Shapiro that's purely acoustic, with no accompaniment audio soundscape. It launches the symphony upward with a tightly motivic Sonata form of short repeating passages, in an unrelenting, ever-swirling and disorienting wake-up call. This is one of four movements in Suspended, a piece is composed in the tradition of an 18th century Classical symphony: four contrasting movements which serve specific functions and reveal a story. The work begins in absolute rage and chaos, then alternates between moments of grief and bleakness. Grim reality shifts to a macabre, circus-like insanity, and by the end, flickers of genuine hope contrast a pervasive sense of dread, and finally arrive at more optimistic possibilities.