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Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City
for wind ensemble

In 2005 I wrote The Rivers of Bowery, a short work celebrating a verse from Allen Ginsberg's Howl. I soon discovered that both the musical and extra-musical themes were much larger than the length allowed, and so I designed this Symphony as a complete expansion, both in thematic scope, and in musical material.

In my neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the musicians and poets and characters of our mid-Century "Beats" are still very active ghosts. I walk past the tenement where Allen Ginsberg wrote Howl, stroll across "Charlie Parker Place", and over the city streets rapturously described in prose and verse, and captured in era photos and film. Surrounded by these spirits, I structured the work in three movements, each taking on a different aspect of the sensory experiences I collected from my months of immersion in the novels, poetry, and photographs of these artists.

Titled after a line from Jack Kerouac's On the Road, the first movement opens the Symphony with the restlessness and constant drifting of a young generation terrified of stagnation. As a short burst of agitated motion, this moto perpetuo reflects Kerouac and his characters "performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved!"

The second movement takes its title from Beat photographer Robert Frank's powerful collection, The Americans. In 1955, Frank traveled the country taking extraordinary photos of a nation that is actually many nations. This movement does not “describe” any of the individual photos, but rather is an attempt at an overall musical picture of the paradoxical America Frank saw: diverse, yet uniform; determined, yet lost; sated, yet unsatisfied.

The final movement, My Hands Are a City, titled after a 1955 Gregory Corso poem, overflows with mid-Century American vernacular. Altered progressions from bebop tunes, and stretched out, frozen, and suspended solos from Lester Young and Charlie Parker recordings all fill out the work. In its larger scope and breadth, the movement is a summing up of the symphony's themes, both poetic and musical.

In all of it, taking material from The Rivers of Bowery happened quite naturally. The process was much like approaching my finished piece as if it was my sketchbook, and using that once-final material as the cells and harmonies to then spin out. But where in the overture I concentrated on capturing Ginsberg's singing of the lost and outcast mobs of his counter-culture, in the expanded work I was intrigued with the ever-present cloud of sadness hanging over much of the work of The Beats. It's a quiet sadness I hear even in the frantic bebop of Bird and Miles, and in my re-reading of the classic literature of the period—perhaps adding a tinge of darkness to the colors of this Symphony.

—JN




1861, a hymn fantasia for concert band - view note
3 O’Clock Mix, for school ensemble - view note
Across the groaning continent, from Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City - view note
As the scent of spring rain..., for wind ensemble - view note
Avenue X, for wind band - view note
Blow It Up, Start Again, for orchestra - view note
Blow It Up, Start Again​, for wind ensemble - view note
Chunk, a funk for winds and percussion - view note
Climbing Parnassus, for wind ensemble - view note
Concertino, for flute solo, chamber winds, and piano - view note
De Profundis, for massed winds - view note
Deep Sky Blue, for viola and piano - view note
Dohyci, miniature for violin and bass clarinet - view note
Lullaby for Munch in Hell, for saxophone quartet - view note
Metropolitan, for orchestra - view note
Milori Blue, for euphonium and piano - view note
Moon by Night, for band and optional chorus - view note
Moon by Night​, Anthem for SATB chorus - view note
My Hands Are a City, from Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City - view note
Nocturnes, for piano solo - view note
Ohanashi, for sinfonia - view note
OK Feel Good, for chamber group - view note
OK Feel Good​, for wind orchestra - view note
Practicing Joy, for percussion solo - view note
Prayers of Steel, for brass quintet - view note
Prelude on "Schmücke Dich", for organ solo - view note
Single, for wind band - view note
Sowing Useful Truths, for wind ensemble - view note
Stereo Action, for percussion ensemble - view note
The Americans, from Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City - view note
The Rivers of Bowery, an overture for winds, brass, and percussion - view note
The Vinyl Six, for mixed chamber ensemble - view note
These Inflected Tentacles, for marimba, piano, violin, and cello - view note
Tree, for string orchestra - view note
Uncle Sid, fantasy on a folk tune - view note
Verses from Solomon, for soprano and organ - view note
Vivid Geography, for women's chorus and chamber orchestra - view note
Wapwallopen, string quartet no. 1 - view note