CONTINENTALCONTINENTAL HARMONYHARMONY AA MUSICALMUSICAL CELEBRATIONCELEBRATION OFOF THETHE MILLENNIUMMILLENNIUM H.G.H.G. YOUNG YOUNG IIIIII n small towns and big cities across the tunebooks of colorful American composer America,I people celebrated the millennium William Billings, the musical voice of the Ameri- in a vibrant way by commissioning new can Revolution.1 works of music. Continental Harmony: A Continental Harmony sounded the millen- Musical Celebration of the Millennium, a joint nium through a landmark music festival as the project of the American Composers Forum newly created works were heard across the and National Endowment for the Arts, was United States. Bill Ivey, then chairman of the an historic initiative that linked communities, National Endowment for the Arts stated that, one from each state, with composers to “Continental Harmony will unite communities create new music that refl ected our nation’s of every description in the common goals of history, culture, and hopes for the future. creating and performing new music tailored Continental Harmony, the fi rst nationwide to their needs, encouraging an air of festivity and largest new music commissioning project appropriate to the dawning of the new millen- in American history, was named for one of nium.”2 Continental Harmony was recognized as an offi cial White House Millennium Council H.G. Young III, PhD, Professor of Music, West Virginia partner and an archive was created at the University at Parkersburg, was project director and Library of Congress.3 National project direc- conductor for West Virginia’s two Continental Harmony projects. <[email protected]> tor Dr. Patricia Shifferd observed that, “the MUSIC OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE Continental Harmony poster designed by Gary Kelley of Cedar Falls, Iowa. motto of the White House Millennium Council ects, including fi ve in the bay area of California. ‘Honor the Past, Imagine the Future’ beautifully Projects refl ected the diversity of Ameri- expresses the spirit and goals of Continental can life and culture. Brent Michael Davids, Harmony.”4 an enrolled member of the Mohican nation, The Minnesota-based American Composers created a work for Native American and Forum, with a mission of “linking communities European fl utes and percussion that incorpo- with composers and performers, encourag- rated the Ram Dance of the Havasupai, the ing the making, playing, and enjoyment of native inhabitants and spiritual guardians of music,”5 selected fi fty projects, one from each the canyon, which premiered on the south state, from the 175 applications submitted by rim at the Grand Canyon Music Festival.7 A communities across America. For these fi fty projects, the Forum received 850 applica- tions from 350 composers. Each community reviewed composer applications and selected the composer best suited for their own indi- vidual project. The National Endowment for the Arts6 provided $2.4 million and the Forum secured additional funds for eight more proj- CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 54 Number 4 23 CONTINENTAL HARMONY: A MUSICAL spirited musical portrait of the St. Louis blues guitarist, and chamber orchestra have when the river fl oods and when it Cardinals baseball team with homage in Traces of Mississippi, a work that is drought.”14 to Scott Joplin, Bushy Wushy Rag, was united the racially and economically di- In Scottsville, Kentucky, the Allen composed by Phillip Bimstein for the vided Madison County.10 In Sacramento, County Arts Council selected Depp Equinox Chamber Players with taped California, the Camellia Symphony was Britt, a successful Nashville-based singer sounds from the ballpark.8 In Oakland, joined by traditional Chinese instru- in the Cumberland Boys Quartet and California, Sonos Handbells, San Jose ments, (the dizi, erhu, and zheng), for composer of Christian music, to com- Taiko, and Pusaka Sunda, a Javanese New York composer Han Yong’s Pictures pose a piece of Southern gospel music gamelan ensemble, joined forces for of Years: Nianhua, based upon the twelve for his hometown’s celebration using The Navigator Tree, created by computer signs of the Chinese zodiac celebrating the American shape-note tradition. scientist, artist, and musician Jaron Lanier, the music, traditions, and culture brought Tabernacle Trilogy’s three songs, “The who coined the term virtual reality.9 In to California by Chinese workers who Song of the Redeemed,” “We’re Singing New Haven, Connecticut, Neely Bruce built the transcontinental railroad. In Heaven’s Song,” and “Heaven’s Jubilee,” assembled Convergence: Some Parades Culver City, California, Thomas Oboe premiered on July 4, 2000, at an old for Charlie’s Dad for choirs, bands, en- Lee composed Portraits of Jazz for the wooden tabernacle in Scottsville where sembles, organs, and carillon, all collid- American Jazz Philharmonic and Henry camp meetings, revivals, and shape-note ing on the village green as part of the Mancini Institute. Music for singers and singing conventions had been held since International Festival of Arts and Ideas. fi ddlers was celebrated in Farmington, 1897.15 New York City composer Eve Beglarian Maine, by San Francisco composer The smallest community selected used multimedia and new technologies Alexis Alrich.11 In Miami, Florida, Migrants for a Continental Harmony grant was for The Continuous Life, a futuristic work Journal by Lukas Ligeti, son of Hungarian tiny Cotton, Minnesota, population 300, for Houston’s OrchestraX and Diverse composer György Ligeti, captured the sliced in half by a four-lane highway. The Works art space. sounds of the backstreets of the Carib- project’s theme was, “Life here in the Pittsburgh-based composer Anne bean cultures of Cuba, Haiti, Puerto forest and what we like about it—past, LeBaron combined the Tougaloo Col- Rico, and Trinidad, combining them with present, and future.” Duluth- based lege Choir, local poets, rap musicians, a computer generated sounds to make composer Tyler Kaiser wrote Cotton music for an immigrant city.12 Cantata, described by one local citizen Of the fi fty-eight Continental Har- as a “classical hoedown,” to honor the mony compositions, more than half town, nature, and the millennium.16 The included choral singing.13 The fi rst to project touched almost everyone in the premiere on February 27, 2000, in community in some way. A community Grand Forks, North Dakota, was Steve choir was joined by the students from Heitzeg’s What the River Says, a piece the K-12 Cotton School, its band and that deals with the devastation from chorus, and home-made instruments, fl oods along the Red River from Manito- (kalimbas, wood and clay rattles, ocari- ba to Minnesota. In the three-movement nas, and drums) created by the elemen- work for choir, piano, and percussion tary children using materials found in the (including stones and driftwood gath- surrounding forest.17 ered by the composer from the banks Missoula, Montana's triennial Inter- of the Red River). Heitzeg, known for national Choral Festival was the site for his compositions that celebrate the the premiere of Walt Whitman’s Dream natural world and address social and by William McGlaughlin, the popular ecological issues, noted, “I’m trying to host of the PBS program St. Paul Sunday. respectfully write about the value of The composition for chorus, including water and rivers in our lives, and at the children and orchestra, was performed same time, write a piece that honors as the festival’s fi nale by 700 singers, the human communities that live with including the visiting choirs from Austria, rivers and that complex dialogue we Botswana, China, Cuba, Denmark, and 24 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 54 Number 4 CELEBRATION OF THE MILLENNIUM Spain.18 children’s choir representing our hope ecumenical prayers: a fearful and The words of Walt Whitman also for the future. His composition, The agitated outburst from Jeremiah provided the structure for Parkersburg Unknown Region: A Journey of Faith, ad- which(sic) ends with the positive belief that God will protect; a native West Virginia’s Continental Harmony dresses a more universal theme. Coe American hymn refl ecting faith in project. Tennessee composer Kenton refl ects: the natural elements; a quiet Gospel Coe, who studied with Paul Hindemith hymn showing faith in a personal at Yale and Nadia Boulanger in France, What I have tried to do is to follow God; and children expressing the was asked to refl ect on faith in a com- musically the sometimes tortuous most complete and innocent trust position for three choirs: a choir of high journey from this world to the next that salvation will come at the time 19 school and college students representing proposed by Whitman’s poem that of God’s choosing. represents for me an evocation the voice of the present, an ecumenical of the ultimate reason for faith. choir from the area’s churches repre- Other multi- movement choral Whitman’s rocky path is interrupted compositions depicting the spirit of senting the wisdom of the ages, and a by four refl ections in the form of America’s heartland include: I Am St. CHORAL STUDIES AT WESTMINSTER CHOIR COLLEGE No other school compares to Westminster Choir College’s focused and collaborative approach to musical excellence. Guided by a world-class faculty, our students work together to prepare for the challenges of professional performance and successful careers. TALENT - PASSION - COMMUNITY www.rider.edu/whywestminster CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 54 Number 4 25 CONTINENTAL HARMONY: A MUSICAL Joseph, for St. Joseph, Missouri, by Jo- many people. Continental Harmony excerpts from Chief Seattle’s oft- seph Bisharat of Los Angeles, California; is about rebuilding and rediscovering repeated speech of 1854, creating Heartland for David City, Nebraska, by that sense of place. I think that is another counterpoint in this work, Deborah Fischer Teason of Hamden, a very valuable and precious thing representing in some way, a passage of two peoples.25 Connecticut;20 and Spiritscape for Sioux to be pursuing and building, as the media and the spread of mass Falls, South Dakota, by Albany, New York, culture take over.