Symphony No. 3 – On The Importance of Our Democracy (2022) LIVE


I.     0:00 The Innocence


II.    4:04 Interlude I – Oboe, Harp, Strings


III.   5:53 Playing with Fire


IV.  10:25 Interlude II – Brass, Timpani


V.   11:09 City on a Hill – from John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon, Dreams of a City on a Hill
 


15:50 TOTAL DURATION
 


*Commissioned by the Dr. C.W. Bixler Family Foundation.  Premiered by the University of Colorado-Boulder Symphony Orchestra, Gary Lewis, music director, May 2, 2023, in Boettcher Hall, Denver Colorado.
 


Symphony No. 3 – On The Importance of Our Democracy, is an expression of this composer’s culminating anxieties as our nation grapples with current insurgent, anti-democratic forces at the highest levels of government.  I have attempted to portray a sense of personal insecurity through a general timeline congruent with the November 2022 mid-term elections in the United States and up to today, including all the stories of political intrigue in lockstep during this time.  My symphony is dedicated to a close friend who has revealed himself as a touchstone of balanced integrity in my life and in the lives of others.  Brian Scott Mason is currently the District Attorney of Adams and Broomfield Counties in Colorado.  During the 1990s he served as an aide to the Clinton administration in the White House during its last years.  This was followed by a Robert Bosch Foundation fellowship to work as an American Fellow in the German Foreign Ministry and the German Parliament in Berlin.  Brian subsequently received his law degree from the University of Colorado in 2006, when we met and lived for a time together.  In 2016 he honored my wife and me by serving as the officiant of our marriage. ~ CP