You can tell that school has started. Long time since my last post. I'm still pretty giddy about having my second symphony played on NPR! (Yes, when you're a living composer, that's a pretty big deal!) So, as I settled into my last class of PhD work this summer, the months rolled by rather quickly. And so, here we are.
I had the good fortune to receive a commission from the Hays (KS) Symphony Guild to write a piece for their 100th Anniversary. The Hays Symphony premiered "Hays, America!" last Saturday evening. I was very proud, not only to be involved in such a storied organization, but also because the music really captured the essence of Hays and Western Kansas. My congrats and appreciation goes out to the musicians, concert master Matt Means, and conductor Ben Cline. They performed beautifully and really brought my work to life.
But that's got me thinking, as a PhD student is wont to do from time and time again, about what it means to not only be a composer, but a composer from Kansas. I've lived here longer than any other state, going on my twenty-first year now, and I am proud to say that I'm a Kansan. (Although, without getting too political here on my business site, I'm not exactly proud of my state government and some of the yahoos who garner national media attention with their hate and stupidity!) And even though I love my home state of Iowa, I'm a Kansan now. And because of that, I feel it's my responsibility to represent what it means to be from a "flyover state," lest someone compare the Great American Symphony to the Tallest Skyscraper in Kansas (see my last post for that inside joke).
I clinic orchestras all over the country as a composer and conductor. When I tell people I'm from Kansas, it's often met with a look of surprise. I used to say I was from Kansas City to avoid any undue rolling of the eyes, but not anymore. Now it's just, "Hi, I'm Jeffrey. I teach and compose in Kansas." I think it's about time people know that there are many intelligent, inspired, and creative people here in the Sunflower State.
And so, it is with great pride, and a little trepidation, that I come to grips with what I only recently coined "Prairie Style." Yes, my music can sound like Copland. But it can also sound like Stravinsky, Kancheli, or any number of composers whom I like to emulate. But mostly, this mishmash of sounds is my own expansive, if not frenetic at times, exploration of what it's like to live in a state with as much potential as it has horizon. "Prairie Style" means open, blocky chords that ring out, clarion-style, like Carrie Nation with her hatchet, or William Allen White tick-tick-ticking on the keys of his typewriter. It means John Brown raising hell and Missouri Ruffians trying to quell it. It means history and progress, sometimes in great leaps, but other times in tiny increments. It's Dorothy and her red ruby shoes and "I like Ike." It's six hundred miles of beautiful scenery along I-70 that's there for the viewing if you just take the time to really look at it.
I'm an ardent tonalist. I'm a Romantic at heart. And, as I come full circle with it, I'm a Kansan. And although I hear it much too often for it to be funny, it is true when they say "There's no place like home."
