FLORENCE – In the wake of winning a national composition competition, Dr. Martin Hebel, music composition and theory faculty member at the University of North Alabama, was a featured composer for the 2025 Hot Air Music Festival at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Hebel collaborated with Dr. William Hueholt, UNA’s visiting assistant professor of piano, who performed the West Coast premier of Hebel’s award-winning solo piano composition “Radiant Pillars” at the 2025 Hot Air Music Festival this month.
“’Radiant Pillars’, the composition selected for exhibition, is a significant single-movement composition for solo piano, 12 minutes in duration, as it displays the performer’s virtuosity and expression,” said Hebel. “’Radiant Pillars’ also evokes the spirit of discovery and curiosity. It is a musical reflection on two scientific observations which extend to our understanding of the universe: the Hubble telescope image, ‘Pillars of Creation,’ showing stars forming from massive clouds of gas and dust, and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the edge of the universe still expanding from the Big Bang.”
Hebel has received national recognition for “Radiant Pillars,” including being named 2024 National Finalist for two American prizes. Additionally, he received international recognition for the orchestra version of “Radiant Pillars.”
A winner of the ACO EarShot program, Hebel collaborated with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to premier the orchestra version at Cincinnati Music Hall in October 2023, mentored by Pulitzer Prize winner Melinda Wagner, Grammy-nominated ACO Artistic Director Curtis Stewart, and Barlow Prize winner Texu Kim.
