Armando Bayolo's LAST BREATHS- Thomas McCauley

Thomas McCauley John J. Cali School of Music Montclair State University

What responsibilities do large ensembles and their conductors have to examine present-day circumstances? What present-day issues are worthy of this kind of examination? Whose stories do we tell and why? These weighty questions are ones which must be considered by teachers responsible for the musical education of young people through the medium of the large ensemble. As each teacher/conductor, ensemble, and circumstance is often quite different, the answers to the questions above cannot be standard or universal. But it is in these different circumstances and situations, and often because of them, that unique and sometimes profound musical and educational experiences occur. This was the case with the Montclair State University Wind Symphony’s experience with Puerto Rican born, Cuban composer Armando Bayolo’s Last Breaths.

For readers who may not know, Bayolo has been commissioned by prestigious entities such as the Aspen Music Festival, Harvard University, the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Forum, and the Consortium for a Strong Minority Presence, and his music has been performed around the world. Importantly, Bayolo is no stranger to creating socially conscious works including music dedicated to climate change (Wide Open Spaces, 2013), school violence (Elegy: Sandy Hook, 2012), and fate and inevitability (A Kind of Standoff, 2006).

Before the atrocious murder of George Floyd focused more of white America’s attention on the inequality in our current system of justice and community policing, in 2014, Bayolo began expressing his dismay in music about the deaths of unarmed African Americans at the hands of the police including Eric Garner, John Crawford, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Kimani Gray, and Jonathan Ferrell in Last Breaths. Originally written as a chamber work for baritone solo, bass clarinet, trumpet, and trombone, the large ensemble version of Last Breaths was commissioned by:

The College of New Jersey Wind Ensemble, David Vickerman, conductor (leader) Arizona State University Wind Ensemble, Jason Caslor, conductor Gustavus Adolphus College Wind Orchestra, James Patrick Miller, conductor Gustavus Adolphus College Office of the Chaplains Limestone College Wind Ensemble, Patrick K. Carney, conductor Montclair State University Wind Symphony, Thomas McCauley, conductor California State University Stanislaus Wind Ensemble, Stuart Sims, conductor University of Maryland Wind Orchestra, Michael Votta, conductor University of Georgia Hodgson Wind Ensemble, Cynthia Johnston Turner, conductor University of South Florida Wind Ensemble, John C. Carmichael, conductor

Instrumentation:

Solo baritone (amplified) 2 flutes (flute 1 doubles piccolo) 2 clarinets

Bass clarinet

Soprano saxophone

Alto saxophone

Tenor saxophone

Baritone saxophone 2 horns

Trumpet in C

Tenor Trombone

Bass Trombone 2 percussion: Glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, bass drum, kick drum, snare drum, suspended cymbal, floor tom, conga, whip, brake drum, four tom-toms, timpani. Harp Piano

Divided into 7 separate movements, Last Breaths is approximately 12 minutes in length. Each movement names one of the victims of police violence, followed by the victim’s date of death:

I. Eric Garner, July 12, 2014 II. John Crawford, August 5, 2014 III. Trayvon Martin, February 26, 2012 IV. Eric Garner, July 12, 2014 (reprise) V. Sean Bell, November 25, 2006 VI. Kimani Gray, March 9, 2013 VII. Jonathan Ferrell, September 13, 2013

Every movement centers around the last words of each victim.

Movement 1 - Eric Garner, July 12, 2014 Text: “I can’t breathe!”

Movement 2 - John Crawford, August 5, 2014 Text: “It’s not real…”

Movement 3 - Trayvon Martin, February 26, 2012 Text: “What are you following me for?”

Movement 4 - Eric Garner, July 12, 2014 (reprise) Text: “I can’t breathe!”

Movement 5 - Sean Bell, November 25, 2006 Text: “I love you…”

Movement 6 - Kimani Gray, March 9, 2013 Text: “Please don’t let me die!”

Movement 7 - Jonathan Ferrell, September 13, 2013 Text: None INHALING LAST BREATHS

When viewed next to current wind band composers, Bayolo certainly seemed an unusual choice for a commission. Yet this is what initially drew me to the project. Dr. David Vickerman, who, at the time, was the Director or Bands at The College of New Jersey, asked if I would be interested in helping to commission a version of Last Breaths for winds and a soloist. After researching the piece—more on the music later—I agreed to be a part of the commissioning project. The newly commissioned version of Last Breaths arrived via pdfs in 2016, and I made a mental note to program the piece when the right opportunity presented itself.

That opportunity arrived in the form of an invitation from the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) to perform at the National Conference at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona on Thursday, February 21, 2019. No large ensemble in our School of Music had ever received an invitation to perform at a national convention. We were thrilled by the prospect of traveling across the country to showcase our school to college band directors and administrators from across America. As is the case with national conferences, programs need to be submitted well in advance of the conference, so I began thinking deeply about what we should play and why we should play it. Two things became fairly clear to me:

1. I wanted to showcase music by composers who may not be as well known to the wind band community and, 2. I wanted to play music that meant a great deal to my students and myself so that, perhaps, that meaningfulness might translate to our listeners during the concert.

With those goals in mind, I began creating a program for the conference.

Another factor to consider was, quite frankly, the ability and experience-level of my group that year (20182019). The ensemble recording I submitted to CBDNA for consideration (from 2017-2018) was populated by many seniors, and 7 graduate students. However, the ensemble I would be taking to Arizona was quite a bit younger and less experienced. So, I had to find a way to present our ensemble in the best light possible while, at the same time, programming music worthy of presenting at CBDNA. This harkened my thinking that, if the mu-

sic we played meant a great deal to the students, perhaps that love and enthusiasm might overshadow the fact that we would likely be one of the youngest ensembles to appear that weekend, and translate to something beyond, and more important than, an error-free performance (which we had no chance of delivering).

It was not long into the programming process that the idea of Last Breaths began flooding my mind. Having been to many CBDNA national and regional conferences (and having had a group appear at a regional conference in 2012), I was familiar with the repertoire often presented. Indeed, Last Breaths would be something unique and, dare I say, maybe a bit of a shock to the attendees. Therefore, I decided that Last Breaths would be the emotional center-piece of our CBDNA program.

Next, I began selecting pieces (from as many composers who were not as well-known as they should be) to complement, highlight, introduce, and help the listeners to recover from the highly emotionally-charged, centerpiece of the program. Programming is an organic, creative process in which I find that, if I simply give it time and enough space, the program often selects me. And so, the following program revealed itself:

Ankrovag Fanfare (from A Jack Stamp Suite) Bruce Yurko (b. 1951)

Husa David Maslanka (1943-2017)

In memory of Karel Husa and David Maslanka

Harriet O’Neal Douglas (b. 1963) I. Araminta’s Escape II. Stranger in a Strange Land III. Moses

Last Breaths Armando Bayolo (b. 1973)

I. Eric Garner, July 12, 2014 II. John Crawford, August 5, 2014 III. Trayvon Martin, February 26, 2012 IV. Eric Garner, July 12, 2014 (reprise) V. Sean Bell, November 25, 2006 VI. Kimani Gray, March 9, 2013 VII. Jonathan Ferrell, September 13, 2013 Al-Jabril Muhammad, soloist Al-Jabril Muhammad is a Graduate Student majoring in Vocal Performance

Letter from Home Aaron Copland (1900-1990) arr. Brian Belski

Return to the White City Tom Davoren (b. 1986)

While I could easily write a detailed essay about nearly every one of the above works, their composers, and how deeply I felt about them, I’m afraid that will have to wait for another time. I am more compelled to discuss our experiences with Last Breaths.

By August 2018, I submitted our program to the CBDNA National Conference organizational committee. After pressing “send” that day, I prayed that I could help bring my ensemble to where we could play the program I just submitted. I would need to lead an entire group of strangers to a place of trust that often takes several years to achieve. I had four months to do it.

Because the CBDNA conference was held February 19-21, and because our semester break lasted until January 21, I had less than a month to put the final details in place before we departed for Arizona. That meant the bulk of the rehearsal preparations needed to take place during the Fall semester (September – December). This also meant that my group would be preparing repertoire for the Fall semester and, at the same time, preparing the CBDNA program. Quite a tall order for any university ensemble.

BREATHING, OR THE LACK THEREOF

The music of Last Breaths is centered around the vocal soloist; ideally a male baritone. Quite coincidentally, the previous Spring I had served on an audition panel to select soloists and small ensembles for an annual oncampus concert. There, I listened to a young man sing an extremely moving spiritual, in a setting by Undine Smith Moore (titled, Watch and Pray), which speaks of the selling of family members into slavery. When considering who might be a good fit for a soloist on Last Breaths, that singer, Al-Jabril Muhammad, leapt to mind. I contacted Al-Jabril, spoke to him about the piece, and about my plans for it, including the performance at the CBDNA

National Conference in Arizona. He was thrilled about the prospect of both learning the music, and about travelling across country to perform it. We immediately scheduled a series of one-on-one sessions when he and I could sit with the piece and go through it together. In the meantime, Al-Jabril set about learning the piece both on his own and with his private studio teacher, using a recording of the premiere performance conducted by David Vickerman as a starting point. When Al-Jabril did rehearse with the full ensemble, and after we felt comfortable working with one another, it became clear that we were on the precipice of something profound.

Once rehearsals began in September, the students in the group, excited by the prospect of a trip out west, dove into the repertoire with both feet just as I’d hoped. To begin the rehearsal process on Last Breaths, I felt it more important than usual to introduce the group to the piece in a very deliberate fashion. We didn’t play it at all during the first rehearsal; I began by simply reading Bayolo’s program note:

In December, 2014, a grand jury in New York declared police officer Daniel Pantaleo not liable in the choking death of Eric Garner, a street vendor of “loosey” cigarettes who posed no violent threat to officer Pantaleo or those around him and was killed in a display of police arrogance and brutality that is sadly all too common (especially against African Americans) in the United States of America in the 21st century. A month before, the town of Ferguson, Missouri, a subdivision of St. Louis, a city close to my heart, exploded in sometimes violent demonstrations when another grand jury acquitted police officer Darren Wilson in theshooting death of Michael Brown, who was unarmed. The Ferguson riots were not only an explosion of rage from an increasingly marginalized community, but also proved a demonstration of the increased militarization of police forces in the United States. I do not tend to write a lot of specifically political pieces, but the events above are merely a drop in an increasingly bloody bucket, and angered a lot of people, including myself. In Last Breaths, I join my voice in the outcry against these growing injustices. The piece began as a much more straightforward set of songs for Loadbang, with whom I’d been trying to find a collaborative project for some time, but by December, 2014, after the Ferguson riots and the Eric Garner decision, I needed to join my voice to the growing outcry, however humbly. in 2016, my friend and Great Noise Ensemble colleague, David Vickerman, asked me toprepare a large ensemble version of it for his On Justice and Peace project. This piece is the result. Last Breaths sets the last words of six young men killed by police in the last ten years. I hope it honors their memories in some small way, and it is to those memories, along with countless others’, that this work is dedicated.

Upon hearing the above, we listened to David Vickerman conducting the premiere performance. Afterward, you could hear a pin drop in the rehearsal room. No one spoke for a while. We all sat and tried to wrap our heads around what we experienced. From that moment on, everyone involved was “all in.”

EXHALING LAST BREATHS

I invited Armando Bayolo to campus several weeks before our departure to critique our playing, as needed. In addition to working with the Wind Symphony, he also coached some student composers. During rehearsal, we played the piece through and, at the conclusion, waited for Bayolo’s reaction. After he gathered himself, the composer’s satisfaction with what he experienced was obvious and emotional. Bayolo enthusiastically complimented our efforts and, after making a few adjustments with regard to instrument/vocal balance, the rehearsal ended. We continued to refine Last Breaths and our entire program until our departure on February 19, 2020.

It bears noting that, in 2019, Arizona was not known as a hotbed of liberalism. This fact was not entirely lost on me as I prepared to transport my band of mostly eastcoast born and raised, mostly blue-stated young musicians to a place that awarded all of its eleven Electoral College votes to Donald Trump in 2016. Because it was important that our audience—both at the CBDNA conference and at the high schools we toured—understood why Last Breaths mattered, I added the following note to the printed concert program:

Although I have not attended every CBDNA national conference, my guess is that there have been very few pieces performed that focus on the subject of social justice. I believe that if the “band world” is to remain relevant, we must, among other things, play music that reflects the times in which we live. We programmed and perform this amazingly dramatic piece today not to imply that every police officer has violent intentions, because of course that is not true. Instead, we seek to raise awareness of the violent nature of our American society, and the toll that violence takes on the youth of our country. And, while not every police officer is a

killer, it is also true that not every young, black man in a sweatshirt is a threat! In a country that loudly and proudly touts its Christian roots, it would serve all Americans, from every race, creed, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background, to remember the words and actions of the founder of that religion, and…to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

We performed the program at two different high schools prior to the CBDNA conference concert; once at a local high school near our university, and the other at a high school in Mesa, Arizona, just a few miles away from the conference site. Each attempt was better than the last. And our performance at the CBDNA National Conference was something no one there, either on stage or in the audience, will soon forget.

Bayolo’s Last Breaths brought everyone to their collective, metaphorical knees. The final movement of the piece (“Jonathan Ferrell, September 13, 2013”) asks not for the ensemble to play, however for them to set their instruments aside, stand on their feet, face the audience, and raise their hands above their heads as if surrendering…and to remain silent for an extraordinary amount of time (approximately 90 seconds). The silence alone causes a fair amount of unease, both in the performers and among the audience. However, because this “surrender” movement is preceded by “Kimani Gray, March 9, 2013”—which employs Kimani Gray’s last words (“Please don’t let me die!”) as its only text—the deafening silent final movement becomes all the more uncomfortable and palpable. During the last moments of the work, while turned with my hands in the air facing the audience, I realized the impact of the piece that day in that room. Amidst the eerie quiet, muffled weeping emerged from members of the audience. To say that it was difficult not to “break character” and begin weeping myself is an understatement.

As is sometimes the case with live, musical “happenings”, reproductive recordings, whether audio or visual, can sometimes not completely capture the intensity of the moment. While there is a very well-produced video recording of our CBDNA National Conference performance, it can neither fully reproduce nor capture the emotions in the room that day. However, here is the link to the archived version of the concert: https://banddirector.com (see the website’s “Concert Band” heading).

Our collective experience with Armando Bayolo’s Last Breaths is a good example of what can happen when a moment in time, a group of dedicated people, a work of art, and a common goal come together; extraordinary things often can and, in this case, did happen.

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Bachelor of Arts in Music Bachelor of Arts in Music (combined with a second major) Bachelor of Music Education Bachelor of Music in Performance

For Open House and Audition dates, go to: www.gettysburg.edu/sunderman

www.gettysburg.edu/sunderman

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