The moment you squeeze into a flak jacket, gravity seems to have doubled. The flak is as weighty as a bag of concrete – the better to withstand exploding shrapnel – and wearing it gives you an immediate soldier’s perspective. It’s a heavy job; a lot rests on your shoulders.
Field recording is part of my artistic life, taking me from FermiLab’s particle accelerator to the forests of Virginia, but venturing onto the firing range at the US Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton is by far the most impactful recording experience I’ve ever had. I went there to captured the sounds of mortar and artillery for Art of War, a symphony exploring the perspective of soldiers, weapons, and the collision of civilizations that’s premiering this month at the National Symphony Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda.
So, how did I end up next to the impact zone of a 50 caliber guns?
For my largest symphonic commission as composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, I wanted to create a piece that resonated in Washington DC. A symphonic exploration of war intrigued me for a number of reasons. On a musical level, I’ve always been fascinated by the vividness of martial music, whether celebratory or cataclysmic, and the possibility of upping-the-ante with explosions seemed a provocative challenge. (I don’t think it’s happened time since the1812 Overture). But beyond bombast, I also wanted to explore the musical possibilities of two civilizations becoming intertwined, which in this case is a fusion of the folk musics of America and Iraq.
There are also personal reasons for Art of War. The US has been in the Middle East for most of my life. No matter your political opinion, that fact is overwhelming. What might have seemed a “CNN war” in the 90’s came much closer to home in 2003, when my brother was deployed in the Iraq invasion as captain of a mortar platoon. There was a particularly fraught time in Fallujah when many families lived in terror that the dreaded “black car” would show up at their house with bad news. Thankfully that didn’t happen for us, and the experience of serving in the US Marines made an lasting impact on my brother, giving him a focus and discipline in his later business endeavors.
But having the war brought so close to home makes one think about the costs, the goals, and the impacts on the people on the front lines. And, truth be told, the experience of spending two days with Maj. Matthew Hilton and the US Marines informed the piece beyond the sounds of that I captured. Wearing a flak jacket and talking to the soldiers, you start to see through their eyes.
Political art on its own can be perishable, sometimes too closely hitched to the news cycle, and my interest is always musical and dramatic. I find it more artistically interesting if works present a prism-like collection of viewpoints. So, beyond the conjuring of the battlefield, the project also inspired a lyrical response in the central movement “Two Worlds.”
This heart and soul of the work examines the perspectives of an American soldier and an Iraqi translator through the folk music of their cultures. Over an ambient re-imagination of American blues, a fiddle sings a melancholic tune; thousands of miles away, a bent melody floats over a drone, informed by the modes of the Arabic maqam. These worlds seem so distant, yet over the course of the movement, the two merge, connected by the soulful “blue notes” that inform both folk traditions – a musical tribute to the hope that diverse cultures can be “stronger together.” This movement is inspired by the story of Dylan Park, who wrote a touching reflection on his friendship with an Iraqi who worked at his Air Force base (read it here – prepare to be moved).
One final “DC element” to the piece is the sound of the printing presses of the US Treasury, which can be heard in the opening movement “Money As a Weapons System.” That is the title of an actual US military handbook describing the use of money to achieve military goals, and I couldn’t resist composing a musical analogue to the alarming idea of weaponized money. Special access granted by the US Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving & Printing took me before giant, strange machines clattering endless sheets of money into being. Lurching rhythms created from these sounds integrate with quicksilver, caffeinated musical textures that glitter like coins from a slot machine – only to spin wildly out of control over the course of the movement. I have never spent so much time on any single movement; the concept demanded I create endlessly undulating surfaces.
My history with the National Symphony runs deep, and it will be so meaningful to hear these musicians bring to life a piece that goes in a new direction for me. Over ten years ago the NSO premiered my first large-scale work, Liquid Interface, and over the years they have played many pieces of mine, including a tribute to American exploration entitled Passage. Maestro Noseda has the perfect blend of precision, drama, and musicality to make this work leap off the page.