As May descends upon California and my garden explodes with flowers and weeds, music is also bursting to life on many fronts for me this month. From the premiere of my chorus and orchestra piece Children of Adam to several performances of my symphonic bestiary Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, music is coming out of the cracks in the sidewalk these days:
CHILDREN OF ADAM
Children of Adam is a kind of fanfare oratorio written for my hometown band, the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. My first encounters with symphonic music happened at RSO concerts, so it really touched me when Maestro Steven Smith approached me about a new work celebrating the orchestra’s 60th anniversary. It was high time to compose a work for chorus and orchestra, especially since I began my musical life as a choir boy at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Virginia.
For both the purposed of this celebration, and as well to contribute something fresh to the repertoire, I avoided the rather leaden vibe of many chorus and orchestra pieces (I do love requiems but, you know…). I decided to create a collection of bright, uplifting works that would use both chorus and orchestra in vibrant ways.
Children of Adam explores seven exuberant perspectives of creation and rebirth, from American poets to sacred and Native American texts. The title comes from a Walt Whitman poem that appears throughout the work in the form of brief “fanfare intermezzos.” His celebrations of sensuality, considered provocative at the time, explore the connection of the body and the soul. Between these choral fanfares, each movement of the work offers a different perspective on creation.
Two Psalms offer colorful imagery of fertility, from crops to children – who are compared to olive shoots sprouting around the kitchen table (evoked by a sinewy snake-charmer tune in the double reeds). The harp is given a prominent role in the role of the “ten-stringed lyre” mentioned in the text, and the entire movement has an exotic allure. Later in the work, another biblical text comes in a darker vein, with the Book of Genesis’ creation of the world conjured in music both frightening and, ultimately, impassioned. An interesting secular complement to these sacred texts are two poems by Carl Sanburg, who describes the creations of the Industrial Age in a highly reverent manner in “Prayers of Steel.” All manner of industrial clacks and clinks are heard from the orchestra.
The central movement of the cycle is a setting of “Tolepe Menenak” (Turtle Island) from the Mataponi Indians, whose reservation is close to my family’s farm in King & Queen County, Virginia. It was incredibly inspiring to explore a creation text whose roots are so close to that of my own family. The text, in native East Coast Algonquian, was sung to me by Sharon Sun Eagle at the reservation, where I visited with Hope Armstrong Erb – who has continued to be a mentor to me, well beyond my time with her at St. Christopher’s School. Deepest thanks to Sharon for sharing some of the Mataponi traditions with me.
ANTHOLOGY OF FANTASTIC ZOOLOGY
The largest piece I’ve written appears in many places over the next month. Edwin Outwater brings it to the Colorado Symphony, which is emerging as one of the most dynamic orchestras in the country. Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducts it with the excellent Fort Worth Symphony, and my friend Benjamin Shwartz brings it to Portugal. Each one of those conductors have become longtime supporters of my music who should be applauded for fearlessly programming such a demanding work.
Written for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti, the piece is a vivid setting of Jorge Luis Borges’ Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, a psychedelic bestiary teeming with strange creatures and wild sonic effects. Underpinning this is a sprawling form unlike anything I’ve composed.
A master of magical realism and narrative puzzles, Borges created a magical compendium of mythological creatures (several are of his own invention). The musical realization of this is eleven interlocking movements, an expansive form inspired by French and Russian ballet scores. In between evocations of creatures familiar (sprite, nymph) and unknown (an animal that is an island), brief “forest interludes” take us deeper into the night, and deeper into the forest itself. Lots of spatial effects, both onstage and off, and a variety of theatrical surprises are used throughout the piece. The trick is that all of the animals fuse together at the end, when the preceding 30 minutes collapses in an epic finale in which all the animals fuse together.
ROBERT MOODY
Ever since he conducted my first symphonic work when I was a high school junior, Robert Moody has been a dear friend and mentor. This month he steps down from the Portland Symphony in Maine, where he programmed many of my pieces over the years, and heads to the Memphis Symphony where he is already doing phenomenal things. As I could not attend his farewell party, I write here some of my feelings about this superb musician and stellar human being.
Robert’s unique gift is combining revelatory music making with an approachable stage presence. Musicians love him for this, as attested by the growing number of principal musicians from the country’s top orchestras on the roster of his Arizona Music Fest. I have always appreciated Robert’s willingness to challenge audiences, in cities large and small, by programming new music in imaginative ways.
American music is lucky to have Robert, and I will always be thankful for everything he continues to do for my music.