To listen while following along with the score, click here: ANCIENT ANOMALIES, No. 5: Moai of Easter Island, Op. 183 │ Brass Quintet │ Dr. Daniel Thrower

This composition is one in a series of “Ancient Anomalies. ”The series idea has a dual meaning, as each work not only celebrates an ancient mystery, but each originated from sketches early in my composing career, and completed, in some cases, decades later. This work, from sketch to completion, spans more than 22½ years.

The plodding, primal, march-like rhythms throughout this irregular-meter composition bring the gigantic, awkward Moai of Easter Island to life. It is fabled that there was a woman who lived alone on the mountain that ordered the Moai to move at her will. One can imagine these monoliths parading to their final destinations at the magical orders of this mysterious mountain-dweller, with this music to power them. More practical theories explain their movement via rolling logs or on sleds. When the island was discovered on Easter in 1722, the once-forested terrain was barren of trees, likely from use of Moai transport.

At Easter Island, there are close to 1000 Moai statues, and, as of 2023, more are still being discovered. They were constructed at quarries and transported to their stations, archaeologists say, by the seafaring Polynesians, ca. 1250-1500 AD. Some question the dating, however, due to the extreme amount of sediment that was deposited on many of the statues, burying them up to the neck. That could not have happened, they say, in the last 700 years. So the question is: Did the Polynesians create the Moai, or did they find them?