Flute concerto gets a final tuneup

The Omaha Symphony performed Michael Daugherty’s new flute concerto with power, sweep and unbridled emotion during its first rehearsal on Tuesday night. The composer, however, wasn’t satisfied.

“I’d like to hear more crescendo from the strings,” said Daugherty, who had been listening from the aisle at the Holland Performing Arts Center. “And I’d like a little more drama from the brass.”

Daugherty, one of America’s leading composers of concert music, is in town for the world-premiere performance this weekend of “Trail of Tears,” a three-movement concerto for flute and orchestra that finds inspiration in Native American history and culture.

The 55-year-old Daugherty has spent the past two years of his life laboring over the new piece. Tuesday’s rehearsal was the first time he heard it live, and there was still some last-minute composing work to do.

A new orchestra piece is like the proof of an unpublished novel. New musical scores will have their kinks and blemishes, just as the draft for a novel will have its typos and omitted words. Daugherty had to listen closely to catch any possible mistakes.

“I’ll be listening to make sure everything is note perfect,” said Daugherty before the rehearsal. “But I also hope to hear some surprises, otherwise, I’m not taking risks and not being a real composer.”

There were one or two unexpected moments Tuesday.

In the first movement, called “Where the Wind Blew Free,” the bass players found some of the score’s dynamic markings to be confusing. As a result, they were consistently coming in ahead of the beat, causing ensemble problems.

In the finale, titled “Sun Dance,” principal percussionist Ken Yoshida played a sparkling passage on the glockenspiel. To his chagrin, he found out later that he was supposed to have played it on the marimba.

But those were about the only snags.

The soloist, flutist Amy Porter, played through “Incantation,” the slow second movement, with polished perfection. At the end of her performance, Daugherty’s only comment was to give her a thumbs up.

“It helps that Michael and I have collaborated together on this piece for a long time,” said Porter, who is a music professor at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance at Ann Arbor, like Daugherty. “It also helps that Michael is such a great and experienced composer.”

In fact, Daugherty has composed dozens of works for orchestra. He first gained international attention in 1994, when the Baltimore Symphony premiered his “Metropolis” symphony at Carnegie Hall. That symphony –– inspired by the comic book character Superman –– was one of many Daugherty works to be influenced by American pop culture.

Daugherty, who was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1954, has also based many of his works on the American West. He’s composed a concerto for English horn and orchestra that he called “Spaghetti Western.” And he’s written a popular symphonic score titled “Ghost Ranch.”

The title “Trail of Tears” refers to the tragic relocation of about 15,000 Cherokee Indians from the eastern United States to Oklahoma in the 1830s. During a forced winter march, about 4,000 Cherokee men, women and children died from disease and exposure.

“The uprooting of people for political, social and racial reasons still happens today in places around the world, and that’s one of the reasons I chose this subject,” said Daugherty.

He also wanted his flute concerto to have a Native American theme because the instrument is an integral part of Indian musical culture.

There are few passages in “Trail of Tears” that are meant to sound like traditional Native American folk music, in particular, a raucous duel between flute and tom-tom in the finale.

But there are other moments when it calls to mind rock ’n’ roll. That’s particularly true in sections where the flutist blows aggressively over the wind way, creating a haunting echo sound.

That effect wasn’t lost on music director Thomas Wilkins.

“I thought at times that I was listening to Jethro Tull,” he said.

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com

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