Illuminations, Fanfare Sinfonia is an optimistic, colorful, virtuosic, and vivid "Gratitude Fanfare." Encoded in the music are the rhythms of words. For example, the first two notes of the piece encode "Thank You!" There are many two-note "thank you" figures played throughout the composition whereby each player keeps adding onto the collection of "thank you" messages. The three-short-note-motive encodes the word "Grat-i-tude." The timpanist plays a main motive for which the encoded words are "We give you our gratitude." The composition, full of variations of the timpani motive, portrays an accumulation of appreciativeness.
