THE SOUNDS of ‘TRANQUILITY’
Grammy-winning UConn composer wrote with Coast Guard Band in mind
Occasionally, when composer Kenneth Fuchs walks by the Grammy Award perched on his fireplace mantle, he gives it a light dusting. It IS a Grammy, after all, which he won two years ago in the Best Classical Compendium category for his album “Piano Concerto ‘Spiritualist’/ Poems of Life/Glacier/Rush.”
More often, though, when he sees the trophy, Fuchs thinks of Bentley Shellehamer. Way back when the 65-year-old Fuchs was in high school, he dreamed of composing music for orchestras and bands — a career goal admittedly distinct from most of his classmates. But Shellehamer, the school’s band director at the time, encouraged him and promised him, “I will play everything you write.”
“That’s the most valuable thing anyone ever said to me,” says Fuchs, a professor of music composition at the University of Connecticut with three other Grammy nominations to his credit. “Even in a high school, I knew I wanted to write large ensemble pieces, and Bentley made sure I got to hear a full orchestra play the material I was writing. ‘You need to hear how the parts work together,’ Bentley told me. I can’t imagine how awkward those pieces were, but it was the best possible way to learn.”
Now regarded as one of the nation’s finest composers, Fuchs is signed to Naxos, the eminent classical music label, for whom he’s released several albums. The latest is
“Point of Tranquility: Band Music of Kenneth Fuchs,” a seven-piece set for symphonic winds released last year by the United States Coast Guard Band under the baton of band director Adam Williamson. The album was recorded at Leamy Hall on the New London campus of the United States Coast Guard Academy and features the band’s alto saxophonist Greg Case.
With Coasties in mind
“How wonderful and lucky I am to write for this wonderful and gifted collection of musicians,” Fuchs says — for indeed his ties to the Coast Guard Band go back years and continue to overlap with several of the musicians serving as adjunct faculty members in the UConn Department of Music. In the case of “Point of Tranquility,” the album was written with the Coast Guard Band in mind. Heretofore, Fuchs’s Nexas recordings have been with the London Festival Orchestra.
“Ken’s music is unique, and his compositional voice captures attention and imagination,” says Williamson. “I first met him when I was a player in the (Coast Guard) band when we performed his ‘Rush’ back in 2012. Later on, when I became director, our paths would cross, and we started talking about the idea of the band recording some of his music. It took
a few years, but one day, he called and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this piece of music ...’”
It’s worth noting that, upon becoming director of the Coast Guard Band, Williamson established the “American Composers Series,” which also fed into the ultimate partnership.
Willamson recalls the first time he conducted the band in rehearsals of the music for the album. “There’s nothing like being live in that moment and orchestrating how that sound comes to be. I just remember being washed over with sound. It was a very physical, glowing sort of experience. Then you get back to work because you’re making a recording of this music.”
That the album was recorded in Leamy Hall is a testament to the acoustic properties of the venue as well as the superb audio equipment therein. “We have our gear set up and our routine, and it was comfortable,” Williamson says. “And of course Ken was in the (recording) booth, so it’s an honor and a bonus to have the composer on hand to work through any transitions and, of course, because he’d written with us in mind.”
“I did write ‘Tranquility’ with the Coast Guard Band in mind,” Fuchs says. “They’re such a superb ensemble, and I’d been daydreaming about (the Louis painting of that title) I’d seen 30 years ago in a gallery. ‘Someday I’m going to write a piece of music about this!’ It’s alive and bursting with color, and then I happened to be visiting Avery Point in Groton — one of my favorite places in the world — and it hit me. I was looking out at the horizon, and it was my ‘Point of Tranquility.’ And I thought it might be something Adam and the band would be interested in.”
Ambitiously realized
“Point of Tranquility” is a lovely and dynamically performed collection. The title composition and “Christina’s World” were inspired by paintings. The former is based on an abstract work by Morris Louis from his famous “florals” series, and the music’s sweeping impressionism reflects the bold but lush colors of the canvas. The latter was triggered by Andrew Wyeth’s iconic portrait of a disabled young woman in a field looking towards a house, contains long, wistful passages of longing that ultimately suggest the possibilities of hope and resolution.
The saxophone concerto, “Rush,” featuring Case, is a delightful and ambitious two-part work, divided into “Evening” and “Morning” sections, with what seems to be affectionate nods to Leonard Bernstein and Vaughan Williams.
There are also three fanfares: “From the Field to the Sky,” “United Artists” and “Forever Free,” and separately and together, they reflect Fuchs’s affection and profound respect for the broad possibilities of film scores and the dramatic tension of video game soundtracks.
Throughout, the Coast Guard Band performs with crisp and spirited empathy — reminding those who might forget that it’s an elite outfit featuring musicians from the finest schools and conservatories in the world.
Classical music critic Gary Richards, writing in Gramophone magazine, said, “(‘Point of Tranquility’) is as engaging, well performed and brightly recorded a programme of wind band music as I have encountered ... I have not encountered the U.S. Coast Guard Band before but on the evidence of the disc they are a formidable virtuoso ensemble.”
Doing the work
Fuchs has a definite and proven approach to composition. He generally focuses on which instruments he’d like to write for, then starts out simply.
“I definitely don’t just go to a blank score and sit down and write for 40 instruments,” Fuchs laughs. “I take a blank sheet of paper and sketch maybe a chord progression or a melodic idea. Maybe a flute or trumpet solo. I’ll spend four or five weeks just sketching ideas and see how I react from day to day. Eventually, I’ll have a series of chords and melodic ideas about who should play what, and that’s how a piece begins to take shape. It helps that I can hear orchestrated music in my head. I don’t know where that came from, but I certainly respect the gift.”
Fuchs also respects the idea of not just recognizing a gift but working extremely hard to maximize it. After high school, he studied at the University of Miami and graduated sum laude with a bachelor of music degree in composition. There, one of his classmates was jazz guitar great Pat Metheny — whom Fuchs consulted years later for the composer’s “Concerto for Electric Guitar (‘Glacier’).”
Fuchs also spent nine years at The Juilliard School and obtained his master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees. Along with Shellehamer, he’s studied with an esteemed collection of mentors including Milton Babbitt, David Del Tredici, David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti, Bernstein, and Alfred Reed.
Over the decades, Fuchs studied a wide variety of musical styles — some of which were being explored in real time. “I was studying with significant American composers who were formidable in the styles they had largely created,” he says. “There was a lot of atonal and avant garde music. It wasn’t ultimately for me, but I had to study it and embrace it or at least understand it. You have to figure out how to write like that and determine if it’s interesting to you. Most of the music I wrote in the first four years reflected those styles. I wouldn’t show it to anyone today, but it’s not to be disregarded. You can’t not be aware of the vocabulary and the language because that’s how you find your voice.”
Giving back
Many years down the road, in the middle of an ongoing and successful career, Fuchs is always grateful for those who helped him along the way.
“Some of the great composers of the 20th century supported me so generously,” Fuchs says. “To paraphrase Bernstein, if your desire to make music isn’t what you do every day, then go somewhere else. I’m thrilled to have friends and colleagues who write important music and have success — even if perhaps it might have been a commission I’d applied to do. You congratulate them because they work just as hard and are just as committed.
“And that’s what I hope to convey with my teaching. I love to teach and to try to give back to students who are as determined and motivated as I have been. I want them to excel and do well. But I tell them, ‘Music is hard. To go through everything you have to do to be competitive in a business with so many gifted artists is extremely hard.’ It’s challenging on so many stressful levels. But you also realize you’re going to school with people who will one day be considered some of the greatest soloists in the world. And maybe you’ll be right there with them.”