This afternoon, at 3:00 p.m. Alaska time, KTOO-FM radio in Juneau will webcast today's matinee performance by the Juneau Symphony Orchestra of the Alaska premiere of a long-neglected work. Its first performances were shortly after it was written, back in 1945. And at that time, it was broadcast over the Armed Forces Broadcasting Network, and was introduced by then-Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening. Sawyer conducted the work again, in 1975, performed by two hallmark orchestras when it comes to attention to new works by American composers - the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic.
The Juneau Empire's Eric Morrison wrote an excellent story about this performance:
"The vivid, flowing colors of the aurora borealis came to mind when violinist Bob King first saw the score of New York composer Wilson Sawyer's "Alaskan Symphony" last year.
"I sat looking at the score and these passages in the final movement written on the page reminded me of the northern lights," King said of the music that had laid dormant for decades in the state library's historical collection. "I think that's the effect he was trying to achieve, and I think he does."
"Sawyer's musical tribute to the Last Frontier had only been performed publicly twice since it was written in 1945 - and never in Alaska - before former Juneau Symphony executive director Liz Agnew brought it to the board's attention. Sawyer's symphony will make its long-waited Alaska debut at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 14, in the Juneau-Douglas High School auditorium as the official kickoff of the capital's celebration of the state's 50th anniversary. There will also be a 3 p.m. matinee Sunday in the auditorium."
They'll also feature a recent graduate of Juneau-Douglas High School, tuba player Stephen Young - on his way to study music at The University of Puget Sound - in Ralph Vaughn Williams' Tuba Concerto, and the concert opens and closes with two of my ragtime compositions, Pioneer Days Rag from 1984-85, and Gordon's Last Ride Rag, from 2007.
image courtesy of Marilyn Holmes, Juneau Symphony Orchestra