Warp by Wayne Rice

Commissioned by the Auburn University Percussion Ensemble, Warp is for a large-scale percussion ensemble of 11 performers with an off-stage violin or flute. When I had the idea for the piece, I imagined it accompanying an animated short story describing the birth and death of the universe: from the Big Bang, to the formation of the sun, the planets, human beings, and eventually to a potential Big Crunch.