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FAIROUZ: Hearing on the radio on WNYC, after an hour and a
half of confusion, ‘the Twin Towers are no more’
that's really the deepest thing for me about the events.
The loss of life was terrible.
When we spoke about whether this was a New York event or a
Kansas event I think it was terrifying for everyone in the
world to see thousands of people disintegrated.
Art Spiegelman comments on this in his graphic novel,
the point is not to lose perspective of that in the years that follow.
ZAKOURA: I’ve known Mohammed for a bit better than three years now.
We were visiting about commissions.
Mohammed said, ‘I've really wanted to address this issue of
what it means to live in the post-9/11 world.
Not the tragedy itself particularly, but make that a
starting point.’ I immediately saw that that was an
important theme.
Then the next step in that process was to get with the
conductor, Paul Popiel.
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POPIEL: Jim had been to a couple of our wind ensemble
concerts and was impressed by the quality of the players in
the School of Music at KU and the kind of repertoire we
were playing.
Please welcome Mohammed Fairouz. (applause)
POPIEL: A reading session with the composer is
a chance for the composer to try different things…
FAIROUZ: So this is a piece full of symbolism.
POPIEL:…in real time with real sounds instead of in his or
her imagination only.
FAIROUZ: 75, 76 needs to start to the end.
Needs to be the real elegy in this piece.
This is the only elegy for my city that I've ever written.
ZAKOURA: Twenty year-old students working with one of the
finest composers in the world.
FAIROUZ: And the end really just needs to come at you.
ZAKOURA: It’s an extraordinary educational opportunity
that probably has never been presented anywhere else in the world
FAIROUZ: And this is another gift that Jim Zakoura has
given us, is making these readings possible, facilitating
all the “nitty grittys,” travel, everything.
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POPIEL: And then when we read it in September,
the sound that had been in my imagination was happening in
the air where we could actually hear it.
I really started to get an idea of the magnitude of the piece.
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It has an immediacy that a lot of contemporary classical
music might not have.
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FAIROUZ: I specifically wanted to craft this piece for
wind ensemble and the University of Kansas has one of the
best wind ensembles in the world.
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The wind ensemble is a medium where it takes human breath
to activate the instrument, to breathe is to be alive,
to still be alive.
And how much breath does it take to survive a catastrophe?
It’s literally these young people breathing their breath of
life into these instruments that is bringing this music to life
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ZAKOURA: I’ve always looked at this as a
commission that says, ‘from Kansas to New York,
we're here to honor you.
To recognize a tragedy and to honor you and to go forward from here.'
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FAIROUZ: They’re up to the challenge, but the challenge is
not going to be primarily musical.
It’s going to be a challenge of soul and spirit and mind.
They’re going to be up face-to-face with American history.
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