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Composer’s Notes: Phoenix of the Plains by Geoffrey Wilcken, 2005 Phoenix of the Plains began with a poem written in July of 2003 about the history of Lawrence, which was the first theme that struck me when the Lawrence Civic Choir offered me a commission to mark the Lawrence Sesquicentennial. The original poem became the first movement of the choral suite, and traces the city’s triumphs and conflicts through its 150 years. The music is dramatic in style, highlighting the defining moments in the city’s history; the open plains surrounding the early settlement are suggested by musical references to another musical tribute to America, Dvorak’s New World Symphony. The second movement is a call to awareness of the many different kinds of people and the many different sacrifices, costs, and failures which have come with our successes; its brooding statements and elegiac instrumental soli appeal to us on behalf of the fallen, the downtrodden, and the outcast, who have also suffered on our behalf, just as our heroes. The third movement is a hymn about the importance of character and of our individual decisions, large and small, which add up to the character and soul of an entire city; how the atmosphere, the “feel” of a town grows from each person’s attitude towards even the most trivial and mundane daily activities. This atmosphere, in turn, can have a powerful influence on all who live in a community. This movement, with dignity and conviction, appeals to each of us to treat each other with compassion and respect, to learn to live with our differences rather than persecute each other, and to view ourselves as a community together rather than as adversaries. The choir is accompanied by four single instruments, each with a very different and highly individual tone color: the flute, the oboe, the bassoon, and the violoncello. The blending of these unique and distinctive sounds into a harmonious whole with the choir symbolizes Lawrence’s greatest asset of the past and its greatest need of the present: that people with different goals, different needs, and different abilities, must tolerate each other and even work together for the common good rather than seek to drive each other out into the cold. In recent years, the need for this message has become increasingly urgent, as fear and paranoia have risen and love and reason have receded; when our nation and even our city have seen vindictive and even vicious quests gain momentum and even widespread acceptance, while voices of sanity and self-restraint have been silenced or driven into the ground; these, like the “bleeding Kansas” days of Lawrence’s birth, are times when the message of Lawrence’s founders is desperately needed.