The Passion of John Brown by Jesse Ayers was the winner of 2011 American Prize for Orchestral Composition.
This surround-sound, narrated work tells the fascinating story of the controversial 19th-century abolitionist through his own words, as well as those of his children, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and the widow of a man Brown ordered murdered. Robert E. Lee, "Jeb" Stuart, and Frederick Douglass also figure into Brown's story. The work includes uptempo action sequences describing paramilitary operations, nostalgic memories of Brown's children, Brown's own dramatic defense spoken at his 1859 trial, and the letter he wrote to his wife and children from jail as he awaited hanging.
