This Land Sings: Inspired by the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie

Scored for ensemble alone, this movement incorporates fragments of the old American folk hymn "O My Loving Brother,”[8] which Woody Guthrie later borrowed for his iconic American anthem "This Land is Your Land."[5][9]

Scored for soprano, baritone and ensemble, and featuring text by Alfred Hayes (1911-1985) and Joe Hill (1879-1915), The Ghost and Will of Joe Hill is a meditation on the final words of the songwriter and labor activist Joe Hill, unjustly executed by firing squad in 1915.[5]

Scored for soprano, baritone and ensemble and with words by Michael Daugherty, Perpetual Motion Man is a driving, restless portrayal of Woody Guthrie as a “man on the go,” hitching rides in whatever transportation was available to him.[5]

The instrumental interlude Marfa Lights evokes vivid imagery of the Rio Grande and the Texas-Mexico border hills, a site Woody Guthrie would routinely haunt. A solo flugelhorn reflects on the famed ghost lights of Marfa.[5]

Incorporating the American folk song "Down in the Valley" and additional words by Michael Daugherty, Hear the Dust Blow for soprano and ensemble reflects on the catastrophic Dust Bowl of the 1930s, a phenomenon that ravaged farm communities across Oklahoma and forced Woody Guthrie to flee Oklahoma alongside thousands of others for the “Promised Land” of California.[5][10]

A fervent champion of workers’ rights, Woody Guthrie fought tirelessly against rich bosses and powerful landowners, many of whom purchased lavish tombstones in cemeteries like “Graceland" in Chicago.[11] The rollicking Elvis-inspired number Graceland is a tour-de-force for baritone and ensemble, combining portions of Carl Sandburg’s “Graceland” (1916) with original text by Michael Daugherty.[5]

Possessing a similar jocular bent to fellow storyteller Mark Twain, Woody Guthrie wrote songs full of irony and humor. Forbidden Fruit features soprano, baritone and ensemble in a play on Twain’s retelling of the Adam and Eve fable, with additional text by Michael Daugherty.[5]

Guthrie abided neither racketeers nor hucksters pedaling false virtue, as he might have encountered in the widely-disseminated AM radio broadcasts of Father Charles Coughlin, infamous in the 1930s for his anti-Semitic, fascistic commentary.[12] With words by Michael Daugherty, Hot Air is a biting musical “broadcast” for baritone and ensemble in which the vocalist portrays an AM radio talk show host, "spinning lies from coast to coast.”[5]

Woody Guthrie was a lifelong proponent of equal rights.[11] Featuring soprano and bassoon and using as text James Oppenheim’s 1911 suffrage poem of the same name, Bread and Roses is a solemn ode to the legions of women who tirelessly fought for the right to vote.[5]

This Land Sings is an expansion of the instrumental Overture, with the addition of material from the 19th-century folk song “Wayfaring Stranger,” brought back later on in the final movement.[5]

Scored for baritone singer and ensemble and with words by Michael Daugherty, Silver Bullet features a “bullet-proof baritone” who sings that owning a gun is a "license to kill.”[5]

This Trombone Kills Fascists features trombone and percussion, a short instrumental evocation of the words Woody Guthrie painted on the side of his acoustic guitar: "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS."[5][11]

Don’t Sing Me a Love Song is anti-romantic music for soprano, baritone and ensemble in which a heartbroken, soon-to-be-abandoned woman tells her lover to pack his bags. Words are by Michael Daugherty.[5]

Scored for harmonica and contrabass, My Heart is Burning is a solemn instrumental requiem for the three family members Woody Guthrie lost to a fluke series of tragic fires.[5][11]

Woody Guthrie was renowned for his covers of traditional American music, such as I’m Gonna Walk That Lonesome Valley. Incorporating only that song’s text, Michael Daugherty composes an original melody scored as a duet for baritone and clarinet.[5]

Michael Daugherty here writes instrumental klezmer music depicting the colorful Coney Island Jewish community where Woody Guthrie would reside alongside his second wife, a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company. The vivacious atmosphere is at one point interrupted by sinister music scored in low, hushed tones, as Mermaid Avenue also details the period when Guthrie experienced the early signs of Huntington’s disease, to which he would succumb in 1967.[5][11]

Wayfaring Stranger/900 Miles is a juxtaposition of two classic American folk songs Woody Guthrie often performed in his myriad travels across the nation. In this final movement scored for full ensemble, the two vocalists conclude with wistful whistling, symbolizing Guthrie’s walk down a lonesome road towards a distant horizon.[5]