Composer relies on Wichita for inspiration, and even the title, of his new symphony
At his studio in Chattanooga, Tenn., Tim Hinck has been working to capture the sounds of Wichita and of Kansas.
The composer was commissioned by a Wichita Symphony Orchestra patron to write a four-movement symphony that puts into music the essence of the heartland.
It will make its debut next weekend during a concert called “Choral Sensations,” that also includes Francis Poulenc’s “Gloria” and Dvorak’s “Te Dum,” finishing with Hinck’s to-be-titled piece. More on that later.
In an interview from his home, Hinck talked about the collaboration that took place to create the four-movement symphony – his first – and the field trips to Kansas that took place for him to capture the area in song.
The process took about 18 months – “a considerable chunk of time” – and he looks forward to at least one more trip back to Kansas this week to work with the symphony and introduce the piece during the concert.
“I won’t have to do anything at this but sit back,” he said. “That’s nice for a musician.”
Q: What’s your relationship been with the Wichita Symphony?
A: The commissioner of the symphony said I want to get this thing written. You’re going to have to help me if we’re going to get this rolling. The commission came without any connection to our plans for an immediate premiere. So, I started with the connections I have, and my connection to Wichita – which is one of four or five symphonies I’ve worked with recently.
Their concertmaster, Holly Mulcahy, is a dear friend of mine and we’ve collaborated on my projects in the past. I said, “Hey, Holly, what do you think about Wichita?” and it went from there. I’d never even been to Wichita before we started this project.
Q: Did you make some trips to Kansas, then?
A: Absolutely. The story of the symphony is kind of unique because I work closely with my musicians and it’s really important for me to spend time with them as I’m writing and spend time where the premiere’s going to be. I’m a little bit unusual as a composer in that way, that I don’t write isolated and hand the music over. I try to write for the audience, for the musicians. I try to write not only with them in mind but with feedback from them.
It was really important that I take several trips to Wichita over the past year and a half or so. (I tell them) “Here’s the music in progress, what do you think?” and get their feedback, a sense of their playing styles. It’s a rather bespoke piece for the Wichita Symphony.
Q: What kind of compositional inspiration did you get?
A: I think most inspirational was the time I spent outdoors, and I took one trip to Tallgrass Preserve that was really helpful for me in writing the piece. I took a long hike there with some of the musicians from the orchestra, because they wanted to show me that area. … (When) you listen, all four movements are directly inspired by the first movements of sunsets – the big, dramatic sunsets you have there. The last movement is about flight.
There’s so much to do with the big sky and the expansiveness there that it was written right into that from the trips outside. It was very helpful for me to spend time there.
Q: What about the middle two movements?
A: The middle two movements are kind of a journey through the night. It starts oddly enough with a sunset, which seems like an ending in some ways, but it’s really the beginning. You dive into the night, have a big sunset.
The second movement is functioning as the scherzo movement, and it’s called “Night.” You’ve got spooky little night sounds and creatures scurrying about, and it’s probably the meatiest, most intense movement of the piece.
The third movement is the dream movement, all about dreams and sleep and really digging into surrealism and some of those things that the guy who commissioned it was interested in exploring.
The last movement is “Morning,” all the way through the night and back to the morning.
Q: What kind of tools in your palette do you use to convey all these?
A: I kind of consider myself a maximalist composer, so I am interested particularly in utilizing sounds, sound worlds of various periods of musical history, various styles and composers.
I don’t really directly reference any composers, but I think you would probably hear sounds of a lot of western classical composers in my music. There’s a lot of Mahler, Sebelius, the big symphonists. But also more contemporary – a lot of jazz references, a lot of film scores. This piece in particular is a lush, film score-inspired soundscape, so there’s some John Williams in there, cinematic film composer sounds.
It changes rather quickly, because I’m using these different sounds, different stylistic periods as colors on the palette, to reference different feelings and emotions that the modern audience is savvy enough to put together.
Q: What’s been the response from the musicians?
A: Luckily I’ve had really wonderful relationships working mostly with the section leaders, kind of saying to them, “How’s the flute part, the violin part?” Once that communication’s been established, there’s trust there to be able to really give honest feedback. My philosophy is that I write for the musicians, and if the musicians don’t love the music, then there’s no chance the audience is gonna love it, right? I guess the biggest compliment I got was when one of them said, “You know, this is really fun to play.”
Q: What’s it like to start with – I guess in the last century I’d say a blank page – but a blank computer screen?
A: Being a pianist is helpful, because a lot of what I do is working with my hands. A lot of my writing is done at the piano, and very quickly to work through the material physically, then get it down onto the page. It’s a bit of a hands-on technique to me, and a lot of transferring to the page. I really wanted this to be for and in some ways with, this community and this orchestra in mind, and that gave me a lot of help as far as Blank Page Syndrome.
Q: Are there any visuals with this?
A: There will not be any photographic or videographic visuals, however we are working on a very carefully curated lighting plan for the performance. There will be some sort of evocative colors we’re going to use.
Q: Early on, this was publicized as “Untitled.” Does it have a title now?
A: I think this is one of the most exciting parts of the project. We started tossing around ideas for titles and it’s sort of silly and giving a piece a title is such a daunting task. I think it was Holly who said, you’re so interested in collaborating with us in Wichita and involving the audience, wouldn’t it be crazy if you gave over the titling of the symphony to the audience themselves? I don’t know if this has ever been done before, but we are going to announce … this campaign. If you’re at the performance, you’ll get a QR code and an email address where you can suggest your idea for a title. We’ll collect those and whittle it down and find the best title for the symphony from the audience.
WICHITA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 9
Where: Century II concert hall
Tickets: $10-$80, from wichitasymphony.org, the WSO box office at Century II and 316-267-7658
