Carolyn Watson, Conductor
Today’s author, Carolyn Watson is an Australian-born conductor who has been active in the US since 2013. She serves as Director of Orchestras at the University of Illinois while continuing to enjoy an active freelance career internationally.
2024 marks the 150th anniversary of the first orchestral performance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This student-led performance is not one we would likely today designate as ‘orchestral’, in that it involved rather eclectic instrumental forces: three violins, one bass, three horns and two pianos. Today, the orchestral program at UIUC boasts three permanent ensembles, the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra, University of Illinois Philharmonia Orchestra, and Illini Strings. Annual enrollment in the orchestral program is approximately 300 students.
To commemorate this anniversary is the launch of Project 1874, a commissioning and recording project designed to expand the orchestral canon. Six female composers will be commissioned to write works which will be premiered during the 25-26 season by the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra. Works will be of a level of difficulty such that they are able to be played by youth orchestras, high school honor orchestras and most collegiate orchestras in the United States. Composers will be invited to UIUC for a residency surrounding the premiere of their work.
The inspiration for the compositions is 1874, in whatever form the composer chooses. This could for example be a four-note musical motif derived from the relevant scale degrees, or some other musical depiction of these numbers. Historically, the year 1874 was significant as it saw the first reference to what thereafter became known as impressionism, with an April exhibition which included Monet’s Sunrise. Also in this year, Levi Strauss received a patent for blue jeans, the Chicago Fire burned down 47 acres of the city destroying 812 buildings, and Patrick Francis Healy, the first black man to receive a PhD in the US was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, the first black person to head a predominantly white institution.
Stacy Garrop
At the time of writing, four of the six composers have been selected and two have completed pieces. Chicago-based Stacy Garrop has written a piece titled American Denim, a two movement work centered on blue jeans and their centrality to American identity. Garrop explains,
‘In American Denim, I explore two time periods and uses for blue jeans. Down in the Mines (movement 1) pays tribute to the use of the early riveted denim as a clothing staple for workmen in the late 1800s. In Rebellious Youth (movement 2), I delve into the 1950s use of denim as a symbol of the rebellion of the younger generation against all types of authority.
Ingrid Stölzel, Photo Credit: Cristian Fatu
Kansas-based composer Ingrid Stölzel’s work is titled Comet Coggia, after the great comet which was visible during 1874. Stölzel writes, ‘Discovered by the French astronomer Jérôme Eugène Coggia on April 17, 1874 in Marseille, it was visible to the naked eye by June 1874 and attentively observed in both hemispheres. As Coggia’s comet gathered strength, it caused quite a stir, and even a panic among some, so much so that Mark Twain satirized the comet in his short story “A Curious Pleasure Excursion” which was published July 6, 1874 in the New York Herald.’
Clarice Assad and Leanna Primiani have also been commissioned to compose works for the project, with the remaining two composers still to be identified.
More information about the 1874 Project can be found here.