One evening this month at the Kennedy Center encapsulates the stylistic sea-voyage that I undertake on a regular basis. On Jan 30, I’ll take a bow after the National Symphony Orchestra’s performance of my symphonic work Resurrexit – and walk offstage straight to another building to introduce DJ Juan Atkins, godfather of techno, on my KC Jukebox series.
This kind of omnivorous music making is what invigorates me, and it’s also what makes the Kennedy Center such a special place.
My relationship with the National Symphony goes back well over a decade to the time of Leonard Slatkin, who conducted to premiere of my Liquid Interface in 2007. That was my first large symphony that included electronic sounds, and the success of that work inspired me to continue pushing the narrative direction of my music. While many of the players who premiered the work are still in the orchestra, a great many are new – and it’s been interesting to watch this orchestra evolve over the years.
Orchestras are one of the best examples of the “Ship of Theseus,” a philosophical riddle: if you changed all the planks of wood on a ship as it sailed from one destination, would it be the same ship when it arrived at another? No matter how many players change in an orchestra, the musical identity of these giant cruise ships often remains identifiable from one decade to the next. The NSO has a particularly stunning brass section, which will be on full display with my Resurrexit.
The piece was premiered last year by Maestro Manfred Honeck, who joins the NSO this month. When he challenged me to write a “spiritual opener,” I’ll admit some hesitancy. Symphonic openers tend to be fast-paced and flashy, adjectives not normally associated with spiritualistic enterprises. Honeck is a devout Catholic who’s created a unique “spirituality in music” focus for some of his concerts, with imaginative stagings of masterworks like the Mozart Requiem. I didn’t know I could contribute.
But I soon found myself wondering if the Resurrection could be set in a vivid and magical way – a kind of antidote to the heavier settings of it by Mahler et al. The work ended up becoming my most propulsive piece, moving from biblical mystery to fire-like magic. Special percussion instruments from the church make cameos, such as the Byzantine Semantron to altar bells. I’ll always be thankful to Manfred for inspiring me to write this work.
So, from a symphonic Resurrection to … Detroit techno? It’s all possible thanks to the Kennedy Center, which houses such an unbelievably rich array of performing arts. Serving as composer-in-residence for five years has shown me just how essential a national arts center is. This place is like the Jupiter of the performing arts, with over a dozen separate venues presenting everything from hip-hop to opera.
My KC Jukebox series has migrated through many of them, transforming spaces large and small into immersive, club-like hangs. I invited Juan Atkins because of his historic role in the creation of techno, which was born in Detroit in the 1980’s. Amidst the continuing adulation of DJs from northern Europe, Juan Atkins remains under-appreciated to this day. Many fans of electronic dance music don’t realize the genre emerged from the ashes of Motown, created by African-Americans who were hacking synths and drum machines in a kind of Futuristic utopia.
Key Atkins releases of that era will be featured on this KC Jukebox. Supporting seminal releases such as “Clear” (from Atkins aka Cybotron) will be a string ensemble performing brand-new arrangements. It’s a fun challenge to create arrangements for music this stripped-down, yet in some ways the electro-acoustic mix can be more successful than with more produced tracks. Having a bit more sonic space allows the strings to spread out more in the mix. Juan Atkins rarely performs in the US, so having him at the Center is a very special event.
What’s next after this lightning-fast stylistic sea-voyage? A few weeks later I head to Sun Valley, Idaho for a Mercury Soul in the snow!