For any composer, receiving a commission is a career highlight—a validation of career maturity and quality of work, and an opportunity to focus on a new piece knowing that it will be performed. For Travis M.Ramsey, the New Hampshire-based composer of FIRE!, the ChoralArt commission is doubly meaningful, as it came from his former music professor, Bob Russell, whom he met as a freshman at the University of Southern Maine.
Travis and “Dr. Bob,” as he calls him, have stayed in touch. From time to time, Travis sent along proposals for new works. While putting the finishing touches on a shorter piece for ChoralArt, Bob reached out to him about this one. It all started, he says, with an email “that all composers dream of”: an unsolicited and unprompted request for half a concert’s worth of music on a theme that he got to choose. In early conversations, Travis and Bob agreed that the piece would be about a half-hour long, using orchestration similar to Mozart’s Mass in C Major. And, on the heels of COVID, Bob was looking for something “big”: a work with deep Maine connections—commemorating something important about that state’s culture or history.
“One challenge was that Bob wanted—understandably—to use the same chamber orchestra for the entire concert, not just my half. But a chamber orchestra of that period is bright and treble-heavy, with two violins, two oboes, and two trumpets. At the bottom, there’s a cello, but no bass! We talked about it, and Bob agreed to let me add a contrabass, which allows the cello to take on some tenor/alto parts that the (missing) violas would normally cover.”
“To come up with a theme, Bob and I batted around a few ideas, but nothing stuck. Then my wife found a piece in the Portland Press Herald about the Great Fire of 1866, which immediately lit up my brain.” Researching personal accounts, photographs, poetry, and letters from the time, Travis began to internalize a depth and breadth of emotions and experiences that not only inspired the writing but compelled him to “pull out all the stops.”
The score begins, he says, with joyous marches of a parade and hymns of gratitude as the city celebrates July 4th on the heels of the North’s victory at Appomattox. But when a stray firework sets off a blaze, panic sets in. “For that moment, I use a real fire bell to evoke alarms and tubular bells for the church bells warning the public as the fire spreads into an inferno that, despite firefighters’ valiant efforts, engulfs the city’s entire East End.”
Then there’s a change of mood and pace, he says, as he opens up “breathing room” to reflect the great practical aid and emotional support that poured into the city, followed by a period of rebuilding and resurgence that parallels the final resurrection of a mass. Travis says it was hard work—but exhilarating—”to pack that tremendous emotional range into 30 minutes that evokes the past but still feels fresh, compelling, and new.”
Come experience this world premiere for yourself on March 22 and March 23. Click for tickets.
Carolyn Swartz is a seasoned writer and filmmaker, published essayist, stand-up storyteller, speechwriter, and former NYU instructor in marketing and writing. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, The Tennesseean, Creative Maine, NYC’s Woman Around Town, The American Classical Orchestra (website), and New England food and design magazines.
Photo courtesy of Travis M. Ramsey.