Pacific Symphony Asks What America Means – in Music, Images, and History

Michael Berick
7 hours ago
5 min read

Two West Coast premieres anchor the orchestra's America at 250 series, including works by Pulitzer Prize winner Raven Chacon and Southern California collaborators Peter Boyer and Joe Sohm.

Ret. Milton S. Herring saluting the United State flag at Los Angeles National Cemetery Annual Memorial Event on May 26, 2014. This photo is among those included in the 'American Mosaic' presentation, which will accompany a composition by Peter Boyer. Image courtesy of Joe Sohm

The Pacific Symphony takes on America at 250 with a May 28–30 concert blending orchestral music, jazz, and large-scale photography and video. Taking place at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, “Shelley Conducts America at 250” features a pair of West Coast premieres along with the special performance of George Gershwin’s “Concert in F.”

Conductor Alexander Shelley, the Pacific Symphony’s artistic and music director designate, said that the concert is a great place to start the symphony’s America at 250 programming “because we’re exploring America through three different lenses here …. You’re getting a triumvirate of impressions of the U.S.”

Opening the concert is the West Coast premiere of “Inscription II,” composed by Diné composer/musician/visual artist Raven Chacon, who became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022. The work was inspired by the phrase, “E pluribus unum,” which has long served as a motto for the United States. He took this Latin phrase’s English translation (“Out of many, one”) as the jumping off point for his composition.

Diné composer, musician and visual artist Raven Chacon, the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022. His work "Inscription II" will open “Shelley Conducts America at 250” May 28-30 at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. Photo courtesy of Pacific Symphony

“I was thinking about this idea of a melting pot and the way that motto suggests at the same time American exceptionalism,” Chacon said. “This melting pot also erases individuality, leads to assimilation, and erases traditions and languages and other things.”

His concept for the piece was to have the symphony’s 50 instruments each begin at their own individual starting pitch and then drift slowly towards one center pitch – the D above middle C. Chacon pointed out that it is difficult, however, for some instruments to reach the D. It is on highest register, for example, for an instrument like a bass clarinet, while at the very low range for an instrument such as the piccolo. Consequently, they cannot quite land on the D note, resulting in some musical dissonance.

“I think that what we're left with is this kind of question mark about what is resolution? What is unity and unison? And what does it mean, ‘Out of many become one’?” Chacon said. “What we're hearing at the end is their insistence in not falling into that uniformity.”

Shelley, who also conducted “Inscription II’s” world premiere earlier this year in Florida with the Naples Philharmonic, called the composition “a very profound piece of music …. It’s a powerful and thought-provoking expression, and the music itself is striking and challenging.”

Following Chacon’s provocative 15-minute piece will be a performance of Gershwin’s classic “Concerto in F.” Its inclusion isn’t just because Gershwin is one of America’s great composers. This composition also holds several particularly American melting pot qualities. While Gershwin works within the classical world’s construct of a concerto, he additionally incorporates elements of his own musical circles — blues, jazz and Broadway.

“Gershwin was the child of European immigrants,” Shelley said. “But he absorbed, and then spat out again, so many of the languages of North America at the time and created, through his work, his own language.”

Alexander Shelley, left, and Conrad Tao. Photos courtesy of Pacific Symphony

This performance of “Concerto in F” also offers a showcase for guest pianist, Conrad Tao, whose recent appearances have included Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall and Chicago’s Symphony Center. Shelley described Tao as “one of the most thoughtful, charismatic young American soloists,” adding that “the combo of him and Gershwin seemed like it was a continuation of that American at 250 conversation — looking at great contemporary soloists who so embodies the America of today.”

The second half of the concert is devoted to the West Coast premiere of “American Mosaic,” an extraordinary multimedia collaboration between the acclaimed composer Peter Boyer and renowned photographer Joe Sohm. The 33-minute piece offers an innovative combination of Boyer’s rousing symphonic music, Sohm’s spectacular visual images, and a live spoken narration of historic material, recited by Deja Foxx, utilizing sources such as Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman and the Declaration of Independence. Containing images spotlighting all 50 states, “American Mosaic” contains 11 themed sections, ranging from “Rails, Rivers, and Roads” and “Cities Arising” to “Faces of America” and “West of the Continental Divide.”

Sohm and Boyer, both Southern California-based artists, first crossed paths in 2010, but their creative partnership began in 2023 when Sohm phoned Boyer out of the blue with the idea of pairing Boyer’s music with Sohm’s well-known photos of America and tie it all in with the nation’s 250th anniversary. Sohm thought they’d be a good match because “his music sounds like my photographs.” Boyer said he knew right away this idea would make a great project. “I felt even just from his first meeting that there was going to be a real synergy between his images and my music.”

Photo 1: Composer Peter Boyer, left, and photographer Joe Sohm will have the West Coast premiere of their work "American Mosaic" at Segerstrom Concert Hall. Photos 2-5: Images by Joe Sohm which will be a part of the multimedia presentation. Photos courtesy of Pacific Symphony

Sohm put together an initial, hour-long edit of his images with pre-existing music of Boyer’s. Describing that first edit as a “great start,” Boyer recognized immediately how well his music and Sohm’s images worked together. The process in creating “American Mosaic,” however, wasn’t simple. The duo did 17 rounds of editing — with each alternating in working on the piece — before arriving at the version that will be presented at Segerstrom Concert Hall. Sohm had to rewrite much of his music to properly fit the images, along with composing new material for the transitions. Boyer also kept taking photos for inclusion in “Mosaic.” In fact, the finished work features his photography in five different formats: still, time-lapse, drone, video and Go Pro.

Sohm and Boyer both pointed out one unusual aspect to their multimedia collaboration. Most filmic projects start with a script and then add visuals, with the music coming last. With “American Mosaic,” however, the music came first, with the images integrated in, and finally the scripted narration was added.

“I’m following Peter’s music,” Sohm said. “Peter is dictating the pace.” So, he worked to find images that harmonized with the music. If, for instance, there was music that was going up in pitch, he would pair it with an image that was ascending. “It’s just magic,” he said.

Impressively, “American Mosaic” has already received commissions from six major U.S. orchestras, and Boyer said the Pacific Symphony was “one of the quickest to say yes.” The two men both expressed great excitement over the enthusiastic reactions their work received earlier this year at the Washington D.C. and Cincinnati performances.

“It’s entirely non-political and entirely positive. We wanted to do a celebratory piece,” Boyer said. “To use our material, and what we’re good at, to give people 33 minutes of an uplifting experience.”