Composing the Malheur Symphony: Finding healing with bird songs | Chris Thomas | TEDxBend

Following the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Chris Thomas was commissioned to respond with a full-length symphony. This symphony was not intended to take a political stand or fuel the flames of cynicism in our national conversation. Rather, this music celebrates the beauty and natural wonders of Malheur. Using local bird songs as melodies and incorporating prerecorded audio from the refuge, this music tells the story of a vast landscape with a deep and dramatic history. Most importantly, this music invites a space for healing and finding common ground.
Chris Thomas is a composer for film, television, theme parks and concert halls. Chris has written music for many award-winning films, including "Woman Rebel," which was shortlisted for an Academy Award. In television, he works as a composer, orchestrator and conductor for networks such as ABC, FOX, CBS and HBO. His work in theme parks can be heard all over the world, at Evermore Adventure Park, Knott's Berry Farm, Queen Mary Chill, Dreamland Theme Park (UK), Los Angeles Haunted Hayride and many more. His works for concert halls have been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Hollywood Bowl. Recently, Chris completed his first full-length symphony (the Malheur Symphony).

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx.

Hello.

(Audience) Hi.

Oh, good, a responsive audience.
That makes me a lot less nervous.

It is a tremendous honor
to be speaking with you today.

My name is Chris, and I'm a composer.

Normally,

I'm in the business of writing music
for film, television and theme parks,

but I'm speaking with you today

because I recently finished
my first symphony.

(Applause)

Oh!

(Applause)

Thank you.

I didn't know that was an applause line.

I appreciate that.

Two years ago, the Central Oregon
Symphony Association

kindly invited me to write
a new piece of music.

And the subject of this new composition

was to be the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge.

If you're not familiar with Malheur,

it sits at the feet of the Steens Mountain

in southern Oregon,

has nearly 200,000 acres
of plains and wetlands

and is home to more
than 300 species of bird.

But if you've been following
the news in recent years,

you may remember Malheur
in a complicated light.

In a period of just 41 days
of confrontations at the refuge,

the name Malheur has become synonymous
with political division and controversy.

But for my friends
Jay and Teresa Bowerman,

here in Bend,

these events sparked an idea.

They approached
the Central Oregon Symphony

and said,

"Why couldn't we commission
a new piece of music

to redirect the public's attention

to all of the wonderful
things about Malheur?

Get away from the politics

and just celebrate
this magnificent place."

And even more, this piece had a mandate

to promote healing
and finding common ground.

So once we were off and running
with the project,

we took our first trip out to the refuge
to find the heart of the story.

We met with various representatives
from the Paiute Tribe,

with geologists, biologists

and lots of very enthusiastic birders.

(Laughter)

And we discovered
not just one story about Malheur

but a tale in five distinctive chapters.

Each chapter became
a different piece of music

within the symphony,

and each moves forward in time.

For instance, the first movement
is "Dawning Light."

It's about the very beginning
of time at the refuge.

It's about the geologic formation
of the Malheur Basin

and the first signs of wildlife to arrive.

The second movement, "Sacred Basin,"

is about the first people
to arrive to this place,

and that would be the Paiute Tribe,

and they've been here
for more than 10,000 years.

Movement three is "Thunder."

And it's a summary
of all the darker chapters

of Malheur's history.

Movement four is about probably
the most famous aspect of the refuge,

which is the bird life.

We'll get back to the curlew scherzo

a little later.

"Awakening" is the final
chapter in this story,

but the backstory to this piece
has yet to be written in our time.

This movement symbolizes
our departure from the past

and celebrates a rich
and exciting future for the refuge

and other cherished places like it.

We also wanted to incorporate
visual media into the composition

as well as a multipoint
wraparound surround system

for the audience,

where I can project
prerecorded audio from the refuge

to play alongside the orchestra
through the performance.

At this point, it seems
like we have everything we need,

in story, in concept and in purpose.

But technically,
the canvas is still blank.

There was only the small matter left

of writing the actual music
that's going to be in the symphony.

(Laughter)

And so I scrambled to find this list
of ingredients to help get me started.

I was looking for anything.

It could be a melodic motif,
rhythmic elements,

colorful instrument pairings.

Anything to start mixing
into this compositional bowl

and hope, over time,
it would bake into something palatable.

And I turned to the most obvious
source of inspiration:

Malheur's birds.

I began looking up

who were the most famous
and notable birds at the refuge

and started transcribing
their songs by hand.

And as I started looking
at these melodies,

I realized there was lots
of usable little bits

that turned into melodic motifs.

And I would develop those melodic motifs
into slightly larger melodies.

And then I noticed rhythm patterns
in the bird speech

that became the rhythmic
foundation for the piece.

And pretty soon, I realized I had
everything I needed to begin the symphony.

And during this process,

I would go back into my imagination,

and I would be standing
back at the refuge,

looking out over the grass,

listening to the birds speak.

But instead of hearing
the birds speaking back to me,

I began to hear orchestral instruments
singing these little motifs back.

For instance,

maybe somewhere over here in the grass,
a clarinet would speak.

(Clarinet sound)

And over here, a flute might reply.

(Flute sound)

And overhead,

some aggressive little piccolos
insert themselves into the conversation.

(Piccolo sound)

And now, to go down below the grass,

maybe some - down in the mud somewhere -

some guttural birds or some frogs
begin to speak down here.

(Bass clarinet)

And I imagine, off in the distance,

a couple of birds having a rapid-fire
argument about something silly,

maybe a worm - I don't know.

(Laughter)

And I'll never forget my first sighting
of a trumpeter swan out at the refuge.

And I thought we definitely need
to feature one of them in this piece -

(French horn sound)

with a French horn, of course.

(Laughter)

And at this point, I started
running out of woodwind instruments

to reflect all these different birds,

and so I turned to the string section.

At the front of every symphony orchestra,
there's a big sea of string instruments,

and so I divided them
into lots of little subsections

and had them play
really rapid-fire figures

to sort of mimic the chaotic staccato

of thousands upon thousands of birds
trying to talk over each other.

And the base of strings
sounded something like this.

(Strings music)

Now, I imagine the concert opening
with what you're hearing right now.

[Dawning Light]

(Wind)

This is some wind through the grass
we recorded out at Malheur,

and the first signs of bird life
arriving on the scene.

And a familiar cast of characters
we just listened to,

beginning to dialogue back and forth
with the prerecorded birds at the refuge.

And I imagine through here

the conductor just freely pointing
around the woodwind section,

cuing whoever he likes,
whenever he feels like it.

(Ambient music)

Now, here's our whole
cast of characters together.

And I wanted to create the sense
the refuge was full of life.

And with that trumpeter swan,

I feel like the symphony
has officially begun.

(Applause)

Oh, thank you.

(Applause and cheers)

Thank you.

That's mighty kind of you. Appreciate it.

Now, I'd like to walk us through
movement four, the curlew scherzo.

Curlew, as in, well, that guy.

That's the long-billed curlew.

Scherzo, as in the movement of a symphony
that has some humorous qualities to it.

And I fell in love with a curlew
right away in this project

because I discovered
something fascinating about it.

It has a series of calls that happen to be
in the key of D harmonic minor.

And for all you music nerds,
I believe it's right above me.

But for everybody just listening,

D harmonic minor sounds a bit like this.

(D harmonic scale)

And the interesting color
you hear in that scale

is because the sixth step of that scale
is lowered a half step,

and the seventh step
is raised a half step.

And it gives us these four
colorful notes up on the top.

(Piano notes)

Right? So keep that in mind
when you hear this next bit.

This is what I'm calling "curlew call #1."

Rather than explaining it,
I'll let the curlew introduce it.

(Curlew call)

I don't know about you,

but what I just heard
sounded something like this.

(Piano notes)

Let's isolate this down a little further.

There's our magic four notes again,
and here's that curlew call.

(Curlew call)

Now, here's that exact bit of audio
with what I just played on the piano.

(Curlew call and piano notes)

So note-for-note, that's more or less
what the curlew was singing.

And that was really nice

because it's beginning
to do my job for me.

(Laughter)

It just composed a beautiful melody,

and it was very useful
to this composition

because here's how I used it
in the strings and woodwinds.

(Music)

(Applause)

All right. Thank you.

(Applause)

Next I'd like to play for you
what I'm calling "curlew call #2."

It goes something like this.

(Curlew call)

Now, what I'm hearing sounded like this.

(Piano notes)

I also noticed that from time to time,

the curlew will bounce off
that bottom note a few extra times

rather than just moving up.

(Piano notes)

Sometimes when it really gets going,
it will skip off that bottom note

(Piano notes)

and it will add a couple extra notes.

(Piano notes)

And so I call that one "the operatic"

because every time I hear it,

all I can think is

"The curlew's in the opera,
badump, badump, badump, badump."

(Laughter)

Maybe a better composer

would handle that material
a little more elegantly than me,

but that's all I can hear every time
I hear the curlews sing that.

And here's how I used it in the piece.

(Music)

Now, here's how I used it in the strings,

and then halfway through this bit,

a melody comes into the upper strings
only using notes from curlew call #1.

(Music)

There's two.

(Music continues)

And one.

(Music continues)

All right, so, also -

(Applause)

Oh, thank you, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Also I started noticing

that if you hold all the notes down
in each of those bits of the curlew call,

(Piano notes)

it creates a very useful set
of chord progressions.

Again, this bird is doing
all the lifting for me.

And so those chords became
the harmonic foundation for this piece.

And I express them

through this very staccato-ey
rhythm pattern

that is included in almost every measure
of the entire composition

so that no matter where you are

or if the mood changes
or if the melody changes,

if that rhythm continues
just repeating under the surface,

a listener will never forget
which piece they're still listening to.

That's why composers call them
"a unifying element."

And here's how I used that chord
progression as a unifying element.

(Music: Chris Thomas, Malheur's Symphony)

So, I think you can see
where I'm going with this.

So we're going to bring out
that compositional bowl again,

mix all these pieces we just listened to
all together and see what happens.

So what I'm going to play for you
is the very ending of the curlew scherzo.

(Music: Malheur's Symphony)

(Applause and cheers)

Thank you. Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you so much.

(Applause)

It's very kind.

Well, through this musical adventure,

it was important to me
that through this whole process,

the music remained free of all cynicism.

In our current age of political posturing
and divisive rhetoric,

I believe it's important to rise
above the pitfalls of partisanship

to create something of meaning or beauty.

The creative process has no room
for judgment or censure

but only joy and enthusiasm.

True art appeals to our common humanity.

It has the power to heal and connect us,

to move us from focusing
on our differences

toward what we have in common.

And I can think of no more common
and universal human sentiment

than the awe and reverence
wilderness inspires.

In celebrating the beauty of Malheur,

I hope my music helps us
transcend the banal,

connecting to the sublime
part of ourselves,

even if only for the length of a symphony.

Thank you.

(Applause)