program note
I received an amazing phone call, out of the blue, from Robert Blackson, who runs the contemporary art gallery at Temple University. He told me that he had somehow – miraculously – gotten access to all thebrokeninstruments in the Philadelphia public school system, and he asked if I had any interest in writing something for them. In fact, I did!
Robert didn’t know it, but my first thought about these instruments was autobiographical. I am only a musician because there were robust music programs in the public schools that I attended as a child – a public school music education is why I am here today. My first thought was that 1500brokenmusical instruments meant 1500 missed opportunities to change school children’s lives, the way my life had been changed.
My second thought was that I have been writing a kind of community music lately and that this project might be a good way continue my interest in using music to build a better world. In 2014, I wrote a piece calledcrowd out, for 1000 people yelling and singing. Commissioned by presenters in London, Birmingham (UK) and Berlin, it was based on the kind of singing I had heard in a London soccer match.the public domain, from 2016, is a kinder and gentler sequel, commissioned by Lincoln Center and three European presenters for 1000 amateur voices. What I hoped to do in these pieces was to give untrained and lesser trained performers the chance to do what our most trained and sophisticated performers do all the time – to work really hard together, to solve a tough musical problem together, to make something beautiful together.
I have tried to do the same thing in symphony for a broken orchestra. Our ensemble has a range of everyone in the city – from school children just learning how to play to amateurs to future professionals to members of the PhiladelphiaOrchestra. People from all across the city, coming together, making music. It is a beautiful sight.
Of course, in this piece, one of the problems these musicians have come together to solve is that their instruments don’t work as they are expected to. Some are barely changed, some are just more complicated to play, and some are now incapable of doing what they were designed for. Part of each player’s job is learning what each instrument can and cannot do, and then adapting himself or herself to it. These instruments, like the people who play them, are unique, extraordinary. It has been a joy to work with them.å
