Michael Daugherty

Trail of Tears

This flute concerto is a musical journey into the human mind which always has to discover ways to deal with upheavals, need and misery. The first movement 'where the wind blew free' was inspired by a quote of the Indian chief Geronimo (1829-1909): 'I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun' while the end of this movement, with its turbulent instrumental coda, became a death march, the 'Trail of Tears'. The reflective second movement 'incantation' meditates on the death of beloved people and the hope for a better afterlife. The last movement 'sun dance' evokes one of the most spectacular and most important religious dance ceremonies of the North American prairie Indians from the 19th century which is practised again today after many years of confinement to the Indian reservations.