(dramatic orchestra music) - [Narrator] Welcome to the world premiere of "Cadillac Ranch," an original symphony created by Grammy-winning composer Michael Daugherty and performed by the Amarillo Symphony.

In celebration of its 100th year, the symphony commissioned Daugherty to write an original composition inspired by the Cadillac Ranch roadside attraction on Interstate 40, just west of the Amarillo, Texas city limits.

You've just heard the introduction to the piece as it was performed in October 2024 by the Amarillo Symphony and recorded at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts in Amarillo, Texas.

(lively orchestra music) - I love commissioning.

And we commissioned a lot of works.

And I think, with composers, I really love telling a composer, here are the kind of boundaries of what we're looking for.

Be creative.

As creative as you are as a composer within those boundaries.

And, actually, the conversation with Michael Daugherty started with him.

He was here, I think, at one of our concerts by chance.

- In 2022, I was doing a residency with the band there at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.

I went to a concert of the Amarillo Symphony when I was there and had a great conversation with George Jackson, who was the conductor of the orchestra afterwards.

And he said, "Would you be interested in composing a piece to the orchestra?"

And the first thing that came to my mind.

Yes, Cadillac Ranch.

That's just been one of the bucket list of things that I've always wanted to do.

And I've been to Cadillac Ranch about three times.

I have not spray painted the cars though, however.

- We got chatting.

And, at that point, we hadn't commissioned him.

But he had observed that many of his album covers had the Cadillac Ranch as an Americana kind of icon for his work, none of which had anything to do with Cadillac Ranch.

And he kind of said, "Well, you know, I've never written anything on that theme," although that image is very associated with his kind of status as a composer.

And so, immediately, I thought, well, this is perfect.

It's time to ask him.

And of all the living composers, particularly American living composers, he's perfect because a lot of his music kind of represents that same kind of icon.

- [Narrator] In June of 1974, three experimental architects and artists from a collective known as Ant Farm buried 10 Cadillacs, nose first, in the ground on agricultural land outside Amarillo.

And a landmark was born.

- People would get out of their cars and walk out there.

And, as you approach it, I think it's really interesting that it takes on a more sculptural form.m, You know, you realize it's not, you can see that they are a car.

They're actual cars.

But the arrangement has made them into something else.

Has made them into that artwork.

- [Narrator] The roadside attraction along I-40 draws an estimated 1.4 million visitors a year.

And it is a favorite stop of American and foreign tourists traveling the Mother Road, Route 66.

- I thought it was amazing.

Funnily enough, I compare it to Stonehenge in England.

Because I drive past Stonehenge quite a lot.

And it's the same kind of thing.

That it's, you know, it's very kind of mystical.

And it's there.

But, also, it's part of everyday life.

And, yes, people come to visit it.

But, also, the fact that you don't have to visit it.

You just drive past it.

It's also part of the experience.

- I think that people are attracted to Cadillac Ranch 'cause, first of all, they recognize the Cadillac and the history of that.

At the same time, they can participate in the art sculpture because they can spray paint whatever they want on the cars.

I think that, people like me, I'm interested in it because the concept behind it.

You have 10 cars, dating from 1949 to 1964, symmetrically spaced.

All the same height.

So it's like a modernist sculpture.

And, at the same time, it resonates in pop culture as well.

- One of the things we shared was this obsession with cars.

But we were both trained as architects.

So, you know, we imagined sort of putting that aside, I guess.

But as we started working together, we didn't have any clients or anything.

So we had to, more or less, invent projects.

And, I don't know, that eventually became Ant Farm.

The idea in the '50s was, you were supposed to work your way up the model to, in the case of Ford, it would be a Lincoln.

But in the case of a Chevrolet, it would be a Cadillac.

And so we were very aware of that.

The way styling was being used as an instrument of sales.

But it was also exciting to see, you know, every year, the cars changed.

Pretty radically, in some cases, in the mid 1950s.

So we began amongst ourselves, sketching out things having to do with tail fins.

- [Narrator] Daugherty transformed tail fins to tempo.

In "Cadillac Ranch," the symphony, pitches often are presented in rows of 10.

And rhythmic pulses appear in patterns of 10.

(glockenspiel ringing) - He took each of the 10 Cadillacs, the years that they were made, and figured out what the music was of that day, that year.

And it was popular music.

Not just classical music.

But popular music of that day.

- So the first one is "1949."

We hear sort of, it's "A Summer Place."

There was a film from that time period.

But the piano going... (Michael humming) (upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music continues) (upbeat orchestra music continues) - [Narrator] By now, you'll have identified a recurring theme in the composition, commonly known as a musical motive or motif.

- At the beginning, we have the motive.

(Michael humming) (dramatic orchestra music) Which is Cadillac Ranch, Cadillac Ranch.

And you're gonna hear that motive throughout the entire work.

- [Narrator] A motive is a short, distinctive musical idea that serves as a building block for a composition.

- When people ask about a musical motive, why is that important?

Well, it's important for some composers.

Not all composers.

But, for me, it's kind of the main thing to hang your hat on.

- So it's basically like a calling card.

And the idea is that, and it depends where you go in music history, but, you know, for example, let's say Mozart.

"The G Minor Symphony," where he writes... (George humming) (dramatic orchestra music) That then continues throughout the symphony.

It develops into a melody.

It develops through that first movement.

And what he does is he uses a tiny, kind of, almost like an ingredient.

(dramatic orchestra music) That becomes this thing that he plays around with.

Different keys.

Different instruments.

And so, in a way, a composer's creativity, I think, is very much related to what they can imagine doing with a particular set of notes.

Probably, the most similar example is "Beethoven 5," which has the same number of notes.

(dramatic orchestra music) It's really just taking an ingredient.

And how far can you get?

What can you do with this ingredient?

You find it all over the place.

(dramatic orchestra music) - Using musical motives is something that composers have done throughout history, especially in the 18th and 19th century.

In the 20th century, it sort of broke down a little bit in classical music where using motives or recognizable ideas was done less and less.

However, in popular music, that's not the case, especially in television music, which I grew up with, which all had great theme songs.

So if you take Henry Mancini.

Like, "Peter Gunn," for example.

(Michael humming) (upbeat music) Or "The Rifleman."

(Michael humming) (upbeat music) Or "I Dream of Jeannie."

(Micheal humming) (upbeat music) And so forth.

So having these catchy motives is something that I grew up with.

Every television show at the time had, you know, had that.

And so that's something I've kind of carried on in my pieces.

The second movement, "1952," is kind of a slow, mysterious movement.

And I'm thinking about, when you're at Cadillac Ranch during the night and the sun's going down.

(slow orchestra music) (slow orchestra music continues) (slow orchestra music continues) - [Narrator] About 70 musicians took the stage to perform "Cadillac Ranch."

- It was a good number of people 'cause there was a lot of percussion.

And that's extra players.

And the string section's about the same size as a normal orchestra piece.

But it had extra winds like the saxophone.

And there was a bass clarinet and things like that that are a little unusual for an orchestra.

But that's typical of Michael Daugherty work.

He likes to incorporate unusual sounds or sounds that come from different genres.

- The third movement, "1954," is very fast.

When you hear the... (Michael humming) And it has elements of jazz in it.

(dramatic orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music continues) - Michael has a rock and jazz background.

He loves that kind of music.

And he always incorporates it into what he's doing, no matter what the piece is.

- I grew up in a family with five boys.

Both my parents were musicians.

I just grew up in a house with music.

Was happening all the time.

When I was a teenager, we had a rock band called The Soul Company.

And I remember.

The neighbors called the police all the time because we were making too much noise.

We had a player piano.

The old piano that you put the piano rolls in.

And I pretty much taught myself how to play piano by watching the piano rolls and watching the keys move on the piano.

Growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the, you know, late '50s and '60s, there were no books, really, on how to learn jazz.

So I learned how to play jazz and rock music by having recordings, listening to them, and trying to figure out what was going on.

When I took piano lessons, I would improvise all the time if I was trying to play, you know, a classical piece of music.

So my teacher made a deal.

Okay, 50% of our piano lesson, we'll do classical.

50%, we'll do jazz.

- [Narrator] While studying jazz at North Texas State University, Daugherty attended a Dallas Symphony concert.

- I heard the "Barber Piano Concerto," I remember.

And "The Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky.

And I was in the front row.

Having a student ticket.

Hearing the orchestra.

And I was amazed by the sound.

And I really wanted to learn how to write for orchestra.

(dramatic orchestra music) (audience clapping and cheering) I went back to North Texas State.

Spent time in the library.

Checked out scores.

And I really taught myself how to compose.

And, ever since, I'm a huge fan of orchestra music, band music.

You see, behind me, a huge collection of scores.

So it's something that I live and breathe.

- I played the violin as a kid.

And I loved playing in youth orchestra, especially.

I was always in a rock band.

When I was a kid, I was a guitarist.

I was a drummer for a while.

And I kind of enjoyed, with my free time as a teenager, being a musician and playing music with other people.

And I did actually play the piano as a kid.

And I would never practice.

So I think maybe I was about six or seven.

And, basically, my parents just said, "If you're not gonna practice, we're not gonna pay for the lessons."

So I was like, okay.

And I regret it because I definitely think I could have developed more in piano from earlier on.

But, also, I think the violin is a great instrument for a conductor, just because of the contact that you have with string section in an orchestra, for example.

And, you know, as lovely as the piano is, it's quite a lonely instrument.

There are only certain situations where you're with other musicians.

And so I think coming from a violin tradition, I think it's much more useful for playing music as a group.

And then I remember one rehearsal, as a youth symphony violinist, actually playing "Berlioz-Symphonie fantastique."

And the conductor explaining the kind of story behind the piece.

(flute music) - That's the first phrase.

Can you hear the lovesick yearning in that melody?

The way it has a rising shape at the beginning.

- And, for me, it was very interesting because my parents are actors.

So I come from a kind of a theatrical background a little bit.

But I was interested in music and suddenly discovered that, actually, symphonic music, which I'd always thought of as quite boring and abstract, has this narrative, has this amazing story.

And so I think from then on, as a teenager, I suddenly thought this is an incredible art form that I didn't know very much about, but enjoyed getting to know and really was passionate about it.

- Then we go to the next movement, "1956," which is a Bossa Nova.

- [Narrator] As described in the book "Brazil: Five Centuries of Change," Bossa Nova means new wave and is a mix of samba and jazz that originated in 1956 in Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana neighborhood.

(upbeat music) ♪ But each day, when she walks to the sea ♪ ♪ She looks straight ahead ♪ ♪ Not at me ♪ (upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music continues) (upbeat orchestra music continues) - That's a great movement.

People really connect to that.

It makes 'em want to get up and dance, almost.

- And we go to the fifth movement, "1957," which is Mexican music.

(upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music continues) - One of the first pieces I conducted, in fact, the first piece I conducted here in my first season was "Route 66."

And a very, very similar idea of a journey through Route 66.

(upbeat orchestra music) There's this wonderful idea that, actually, he's used a classical form in the context of this sculpture, which is incredible.

I think one of the things I first thought of, and he hadn't realized this, but it's a bit like Mussorgsky "Pictures at an Exhibition" because it's almost like we're visiting each Cadillac.

- [Narrator] Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky wrote "Pictures at an Exhibition" in 1874 as a piano suite in 10 movements, the same number as Daugherty's "Cadillac Ranch" composition.

The composer wrote it after viewing an exhibition of paintings by his late friend, Viktor Hartmann, at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St.

Petersburg.

Each movement represents one of Hartmann's paintings.

Some of the works are lost to history.

But images of a few paintings survive.

- He had this idea of going through an art gallery and being inspired by the paintings.

So it's a very similar idea.

It's almost like an American "Pictures at an Exhibition" in the way that I think it's put together.

- [Narrator] The most performed version of the work is a 1922 orchestration by composer Maurice Ravel.

(upbeat orchestra music) Mussorgsky introduces and connects the movements with a motive he refers to as a promenade.

A stroll from painting to painting.

Here's a bit of the opening promenade.

(lively orchestra music) In the 1970s, progressive rock supergroup Emerson Lake & Palmer adapted and released its own version of "Pictures at an Exhibition."

♪ Lead me from tortured dreams ♪ ♪ Childhood themes of nights alone ♪ - Well, one of the things that makes 20th century, and now 21st century music, for orchestra, band, or whatever, that makes it sound new, is through the percussion.

So you have so many different instruments to pick from in the percussion.

You know, not only the pitch instruments, the timpani, the chimes, the glockenspiel, the marimba, the vibraphone, and so forth, but then you also have all the instruments from different cultures.

You know, tambourine, and bongos, and djembes, and, you know, wind chimes, and all sorts of, you know, things that you can do to augment the sound.

So I think the percussion's something that I really enjoy.

My father was a drummer, actually.

So I've always had an affinity for percussion.

And it's something that makes the piece sound like it wasn't written back in 1810 or something where there wasn't much percussion.

- I mean, three percussion players, plus timpani, and just so many different instruments.

Lots of logistics.

There's some amazing vibraphone moments.

Lots of xylophone.

(relaxing orchestra music) So, lots of tuned instruments.

But then, also, lots of kind of loud, non-tuned percussion.

(lively orchestra music) I think, again, it really makes the piece.

Because you get the excitement.

Car horns was one of the really cool things.

- [Narrator] George Gershwin famously used car horns to evoke the bustle of city life in his jazz influenced symphonic poem, "An American in Paris."

Spending time in Paris in March, 1928, the composer and a friend visited automobile shops there and purchased taxi horns to work into the score.

(upbeat orchestra music) The Gershwin composition served as the basis for the 1951 MGM musical, "An American in Paris."

(upbeat orchestra music) During Amarillo Symphony rehearsals, Daugherty adjusted the "Cadillac Ranch" score.

- In the sixth movement, "1958," I wanted to originally use a car horn to punctuate.

So it goes like... (dramatic piano music) And then there'd be a car horn.

Like that.

But the problem was, you really couldn't hear it.

So I decided, instead, to use a police whistle, which really cuts through the orchestra, so.

- [Narrator] Listen for the police whistle as you experience "Cadillac Ranch," movement 6, "1958."

(dramatic orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music continues) - The seventh movement, "1959," is kind of a cool jazz movement, I guess, from the '50s.

- [Narrator] For inspiration, Daugherty recalled jazz saxophonist Paul Desmond and the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Desmond on sax.

(saxophone music) - A lot of Michael Daugherty's music, it's not classical in that sense.

It's influenced by all sorts of styles.

You know, the saxophone isn't a common instrument.

Interestingly, it's in "Pictures at an Exhibition," which is where, I think, there's a connection.

But, actually, we don't get to hear saxophone very often.

And so it's beautiful to hear that in that context.

And he actually writes that they should stand up as well.

And so there's that jazz influence there.

But that's a really beautiful sound.

(upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music continues) (upbeat orchestra music continues) - In "Cadillac Ranch," I'm not really quoting any particular themes.

But, probably, you know, growing up as I did with television and movies and so forth, I'm sure that those things, certain things will filter through in some kind of way and perhaps in a subconscious way.

- [Narrator] Let's revisit those tumbling notes of the saxophone.

(upbeat orchestra music) Now, listen to "Gee's Bend," a piece Daugherty wrote for electric guitar and orchestra.

(upbeat orchestra music) - Yeah, you're right.

There is a portion of a "Gee's Bend."

I take a couple licks from "Gee's Bend" and put that in "Cadillac Ranch," yeah.

I wrote a electric guitar concerto, which was played in Amarillo a while back and entitled "Gee's Bend."

And I actually went to Gee's Bend.

It's a small hamlet in Alabama where African-American women, for decades, have made these amazing quilts.

So I actually flew to Birmingham.

Rented a car.

Drove about three hours into the backwood, so to speak, to this little town of Gee's Bend.

And I stayed there for a day.

I talked to the women.

I went to where they make the quilts and so forth.

And, you know, that gave me the permission, so to speak, or the inspiration to then come back and write this guitar concerto, inspired by my visit to Gee's Bend.

So the process for me to make it authentic, so to speak, that I feel like I have permission to write something about a subject, I like to have contact with that subject in some way.

So, for example, I wrote a piece for the Detroit Symphony called "Rosa Parks Boulevard."

And, actually, I was able to meet Rosa Parks in Detroit, for example, and attend a church, you know, service with her.

And, after meeting her, I asked her, what's your favorite instrument?

She said, "The trombone."

So then I wrote a piece for three trombones in orchestra.

(upbeat orchestra music) When I wrote "Route 66," I drove Route 66.

When I wrote a piece called "Mount Rushmore," I went to Mount Rushmore and hung out.

When I did "Cadillac Ranch," I went to Cadillac Ranch.

And so being there, walking around, you know, you just kind of, you kind of get ideas.

But it's sort of mysterious how those ideas are translated into music, or into drama, or into film, or whatever.

That's kind of the mysterious part.

I really can't tell you for sure.

Well, one of the challenges of writing for a large ensemble, be it an orchestra or a wind ensemble or whatever, is that you have a lot of players.

Now, if they're all playing all at the same time, you don't really hear anything.

So what I like to do is to have particular moments where certain instruments come forward.

Like, there'll be a trombone solo or a flute solo.

(upbeat orchestra music) By having these different colors come forward, it gives the piece some variety.

- I think there are two types of preparation of a score.

There's preparation in real time, where you are imagining, for example, a tempo, where you're actually thinking, okay, this is happening in this time.

It's a little bit like if you are practicing the violin, you might play something in the time that you're gonna play it in.

But then there's also the kind of non-real time, isolating aspects of studying.

And that's the kind of studying that you do on like a plane, or in a busy, you know, in a station, or on a train, or something like that.

And that's where you really take it apart a little bit and look at the relationships between instruments.

So often, you are also thinking, okay, well, I know our concert hall.

I know our musicians.

Maybe that dynamic is a little too loud.

Maybe we won't hear the relationship between those instruments.

What we do, as conductors, is we do, we kind of recreate what the composer has done in our own kind of way.

- The eighth movement, "1960," is kind of Latin, kind of laid back, cool Latin music.

That's one of my favorites, actually.

(upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music continues) (upbeat orchestra music continues) - There's definitely an investment in the arts here.

And I think that probably explains why there's a great concert hall.

Why there's a symphony that's over a hundred years old.

So I think that was my first impression.

But I also think as well that because of the geographical location, I think that, very often, people in Amarillo almost need people to come from outside and remind them this is an incredible place and what you have here is very rare.

Because people don't see it when you are in it all the time.

They kind of think that it's just a standard thing that every town of 200,000 or so has, you know.

And so when I talk to patrons who've come from big cities in Texas where they have big symphonies, and they come here, and they get the same thing that they did have in Houston or Dallas, and they find it here, you wouldn't get that in many smaller cities or smaller towns.

And so I think that became apparent very quickly.

How had I, living in West London, heard about, you know, an orchestra here in the Panhandle?

But there was a reputation, a global reputation already there, I think, for many different reasons.

Certainly, the concert hall, which we're in, is very famous and is known throughout the world.

But, also, I think that the level of soloists that the orchestra attracts.

And, as I discovered later on, this interest in new music and interest in looking at different ideas for a symphonic concert.

And, very often, you don't find that in many orchestras.

A lot of orchestras, you know, they want to play kind of, you know, the standard repertoire and stay very safe, which is absolutely fine.

But I got the feeling here that people are interested in something unusual and really appreciate something different and something that they'll enjoy.

- You know, we wanna stay current.

And there's a lot of great living composers that are doing wonderful work all over the world.

George knows a lot of them personally that are from Europe.

I know many here in the United States.

We do this original work.

And then it has our name on it.

Right at the very top of the score, it says, you know, "Commissioned by the Amarillo Symphony."

And so wherever it's played, anywhere in the world, that's the musicians, the conductors, and the audience sees that.

And so our name goes around the globe with all the new pieces that we commissioned.

There's a lot of music out there that started right here in Amarillo, Texas.

- Part of my job now is to try and bring it to other orchestras and try and create opportunities to perform the piece in other places.

Because, yeah, it's very special to perform in, you know, the nearest orchestra to Cadillac Ranch.

But how cool would it be to perform it in Paris or in Rome and actually focus on Cadillac Ranch, you know, from far away.

- The ninth movement.

We're getting close here.

"1962" is beautiful chords.

And I was thinking of kind of like, those amazing recordings of a thousand strings or something from the '60s.

So maybe easy listening music.

It doesn't sound like easy listening music.

But the kind of timbre, the sonic role is that.

(slow music) - Our job, really, as musicians, is to get to the core of what the piece of music is.

The biggest challenge is the tradition of performance that you face.

So, for example, if we're performing a symphony that's 200 years old or something, the resources that are available to you through other recordings, other things written in the parts, the music that we play from, in various scores.

And also, now, YouTube, you know, for example.

You can look up performances.

In a way, it's challenging with more familiar, say, symphonies or something maybe more classical because you've also got this kind of weight of tradition.

And you have to make decisions on that.

With this, you know, nobody else has performed this, which is, again, as a conductor, you're very privileged because, first of all, nobody else has the score.

The kinds of things that you encounter, you really think about in a different way because you don't have the experience of someone else playing the piece or having already played the piece.

And so you feel there's a bit more responsibility.

And you also feel you've brought it, you know, into fruition.

(upbeat orchestra music) (upbeat orchestra music continues) The actual rehearsal process is really part of it because you also develop your interpretations.

Michael Daugherty's fantastic 'cause he's very active in rehearsal.

So it's very interesting to kind of have that dialogue with a composer who's alive.

'Cause we'd love to do that with Mozart.

But, you know, there's no email address.

There's something otherworldly about coming in here.

You know, phones off.

No Netflix.

No, you know, nothing like that.

You know, we live in a world where you don't get to do that very often, first of all.

But, also, I think what's great about a concert like a symphonic concert is that, and I always say this to audiences, you can decide what this piece is about.

You know, the imagination is there for you as an audience member.

It's not like a movie or a TV show where you are following an interpretation of what's happening.

Yeah, you can read about the Cadillac Ranch, and you can read about a symphony, and how that's being composed.

But, actually, you're kind of free to imagine however you want.

In the same way as you see a painting or something like that.

There aren't that many places to do that in the world, generally, anymore.

And so I think that it's sort of like a kind of timeless, very, very tranquil place to come and experience, you know, first of all, some incredibly talented people on stage playing instruments in a way that, you know, is quite a strange thing that we do, really, in terms of concerts.

We still use paper.

We still turn pages.

And all these kinds of things.

And so, in a way, it's kind of like a pause of everything else that's going on.

But, ultimately, it's great entertainment.

(dramatic orchestra music) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (dramatic orchestra music continues) (audience clapping and cheering) (audience clapping and cheering) (audience clapping and cheering)