America the Beautiful?

Work Overview

Instrumentation: Full orchestra
Commission: Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, with the generous support of Nora Frimann & Dan McFadden and Michael Good & JoAnn Close.
Premiere: July 31, 2026, by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra
Duration: 5 minutes

Program Note

This work was commissioned to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Festival requested that I compose this work in response to The Star-Spangled Banner, which spurred on a flood of emotions.

I hold a deep love for the United States - it is the land where I pursued my post-secondary education and made the decision to raise my family. It has undoubtedly been a land of opportunity for me. However, alongside my feelings of gratitude, there are also waves of disappointment and anger. I am greatly disheartened by the resurgence of xenophobia, racism, and misogyny being expressed across this great nation after years of progress. I have tried to capture these seemingly contradictory reactions in this action-packed, five-minute work.

The work includes selected quotes from The Star-Spangled Banner, starting off quite noticeably in the opening phrase. Then, a cacophony of quotations from various anthems illustrates the convergence of my heritages — American, Chinese, and Canadian — resulting in a clashing and noisy interplay. Three additional quotations express some of my sentiments: “And the rockets red glare,” “the bombs bursting in air,” and the final euphoric climax of the piece, “O’er the land of the free.” Ultimately, the piece concludes with a questioning “America the Beautiful?,” prompting us to contemplate our complex yet profound experiment in democracy.