Photograph by Scott Ordway (Sweden, 2018)

In the Kingdom of Bells (2018)

2.2.2.2, 4.3.3.1, timp. + 3, hp. cel., str. / 13 minutes

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PREMIERE

Commissioned by the Tucson Symphony Orchestra

Premiere: 30 November 2018 at Tucson Music Hall (Tucson, AZ)
Tucson Symphony Orchestra; Josep Caballé-Domench, conductor

MEDIA

NOTE

In the Kingdom of Bells is a meditation on a simple, but fantastical idea: I imagine the sound of all the world’s bells ringing at once.

There is no technological reason that this couldn’t happen. But what a profound force of human will and cooperation it would require! What an occasion of such overwhelming and universal joy that we, the community of humanity, had to organize a global festival of bells as the only commensurate response.

There are so many ordinary actions—like ringing a bell—that become unusual when practiced at a group scale, improbable at a city scale, extraordinary at a national scale, and miraculous at a global scale.

Like so many of the challenges that face our local, national, and global communities, the deficit in this thought experiment is one of willpower, cooperation, and organization rather than technology or resources. What would it feel like if, one day, we gradually became aware that all of the world’s bells were ringing at once? What would it feel like to learn that we addressed the climate crisis? If we learned that our societies had been transformed to become more equitable, more just, and more joyous places to live and grow?

With this piece, I invite audiences to consider the small and large issues facing our communities which are unsolvable except through cooperation and dialogue. The music, which begins from nothing and builds gradually to an ecstatic climax, reflects the gradual awakening of our will to act together. I am aware that this is utopian thinking but, for me, to build an idea in sound is a precursor to building that idea in the world.

In the Kingdom of Bells is a meditation on a simple, but fantastical idea: I imagine the sound of all the world’s bells ringing at once.

I think about what might bring this about: something supernatural, perhaps? An unseen force calling bells large and small to life in the course of a single, glorious hour. Or, alternatively, some occasion of such overwhelming and universal joy that we, the community of humanity, organize a global festival of bells as the only commensurate response. 

I think about an ordinary action—like ringing a bell—that becomes unusual when practiced at a group scale, improbable at a city scale, extraordinary at a national scale, and miraculous at a global scale. I celebrate the ways we find to touch a small and simple piece of something immeasurably vast, like setting fingers on the surface of the sea, as well as how we look at something plain and make it magical by dramatically reimagining the possibilities that inhere in it. 

These metaphors extend to, infuse, and define my creative language, which uses music’s most humble elements to build large architectural forms. These metaphors offered both the point of inspiration for and the means to compose In the Kingdom of Bells. 

The piece does not recreate the sonic phenomenon that I imagine—no music ever could—but instead dwells briefly in the emotional world that might accompany such a profound act of human invention and cooperation.

Scott Ordway
Stockholm, August 2018