“One time, in the summertime... we kept going. They left. It’s not worth it.”
Brotherly Love (2015)
Digital Soundscape Composition
For recorded voices, synthesized sound, and live string quartet
Duration: 23 minutes
Commissioned by PhilaSoup, a Philadelphia micro-grant organization for educators,
with support from a 2013–2015 Community Partners Grant from the American Composers Forum.
Brotherly Love is a multimedia collaboration between composer Scott Ordway and PhilaSoup, a Philadelphia micro-grant organization for educators. Together, they asked teachers and their students in nine Philadelphia public schools to consider the question: What does it mean to live in a City of Brotherly Love?
The composer then visited each school to meet with students, facilitate group discussions, and record individual students of all ages speaking their responses. Ordway then combined recorded audio drawn from 111 student interviews with synthesized sound and live instruments to create a digital soundscape composition. Brotherly Love brings the voices of Philadelphia students together, literally and figuratively, to describe the reality of life in a twenty-first century city. As the work is performed, dozens of students voices are woven together, creating a sonic tapestry of witness and resilience.
Pre-concert talk, 1 June 2014