I am a huge fan of Charles Ives' work, my grad school thesis "Make A Joyful Noise" was based on Ives' Life and Work.
After having done a year long collaboration with Juilliard on their Community Cadence videos and other astounding projects with composer Paola Prestini and flautist Claire Chase, I was approached to help realize this delightfully disjointed, reverently irreverent, playful, dissonant, modern, series of variations on nostalgic themes with high flair and design, but with all the performers being remote.
from Juilliard:
"Premiered Jul 2, 2021
"Of Thee I Sing" brings together 100+ Juilliard musicians, forming a virtual orchestra of those studying at the Lincoln Center campus along with their fellow students located around the world in the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021.
Created in collaboration with David Robertson, Juilliard’s director of conducting studies and distinguished visiting faculty, and Creative Associate Kurt Crowley, Of Thee I Sing presents an extended performance of Charles Ives’ Variations on “America.” Using the orchestral arrangement of former Juilliard president William Schuman as a foundation, Robertson and Crowley developed custom-fit interludes that add context to the breadth of American music—organ hymns, jazz riffs, lyrical speech—and illustrate the reality that an orchestra, like America, is made up of a group of individuals across a diverse spectrum.
As we celebrate Independence Day weekend after this year of great change and reckoning, this piece draws together and celebrates a group of remarkable musicians, in spite of the disparate rhythms of each individual’s remote location. Juilliard presents a piece that explores American experiences, and enables each participant and listener to reflect on the “thee” in the phrase Of Thee I Sing."
