American Diaries (2021)

I. Dreams (inspired by Langston Hughes)
II. The Sky Around Me Was Lit Up (inspired by my Grandfather Julius Brown) 
III. My Conscience Presses Me on (inspired by John Quincy Adams)
IV. Rise (inspired by Maya Angelou)

American Diaries (2021) for full orchestra is set in four movements with each inspired by an American text relating to survival, dreams, and the imaginings of a different future. My idea for the work began by reading the powerful words of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, John Quincy Adams, and my grandfather Julius Brown. In all the texts, I felt their strength and vulnerability combined with their wisdom and regrets and could hear their voices screaming to be heard. I reread each of them as I composed.

The second movement is inspired by my grandfather's World War II diary, recently discovered by my family. The content of his journal entries related to all of the above texts--a young man putting his life on the line to help pave the way for a brighter future. He was a soldier who fought in Europe and North Africa between 1943-1945. He writes about witnessing the death of his friends, his struggles to find a place to sleep, and the sky being lit up all around him from constant artillery. 

The work was composed between 2019-2021 for the New Haven Symphony. The texts hover over the work as a source of inspiration and at some points the musicians whisper certain fragments from the text while playing. The third movement is scored for solo harp. The lone voice of the harp introduces many themes that get developed by the full orchestra in the final movement, “Rise”, where all of the instruments come together in a united, and ebullient message of hope.

I. 
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. 

- Langston Hughes 

III. 
"What can I, upon the verge of my seventy-fourth birthday, with a shaking hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain, and with all my faculties, dropping from me, one by one, as the teeth are dropping from my head, what can I do for the cause of God and Man? for the progress of human emancipation? for the suppression of the African Slave-trade? Yet my conscience presses me on—let me but died upon the breach."

- John Quincy Adams

IV. Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin ’in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

-Maya Angelou

 

- Michael Stephen Brown, February 2021