On Sunday, July 14, Interlochen's World Youth Symphony Orchestra will give the Interlochen premiere of "Sighting the Swallow" by composer Bobby Ge.
Co-commissioned by Interlochen Center for the Arts and the New York Youth Symphony, "Sighting the Swallow" had its world premiere at Carnegie Hall in March 2023. Click here to listen to that performance by the New York Youth Symphony.
Now, it's Interlochen's turn to perform the piece.
Listen to IPR's conversation with Bobby Ge about the inspiration for "Sighting the Swallow," or read an edited transcript below.
Amanda Sewell: "Sighting the Swallow" is about flying, in a way, and it's about identity, in a way. Tell us about the period of your life a few years ago that inspired this piece.
Bobby Ge: It's about both of those things. There was a time in my life that was extremely traveled. I had a bunch of [composition] residencies lined up, and then a bunch of stuff with home and family. My family was moving and figuring out where they were going to be and such. And then I myself was technically still living in Baltimore, but then every single month of the year, I was in a completely different city for different reasons. Sometimes it was a residency or a teaching gig or just some other engagement that I had.
All this time, I just felt incredibly excited. It was super fun being able to travel and being able to interface with musicians and artists of all these different kinds and different places. But it was uniquely lonely in a way because it was really hard to maintain any consistent sense of community or belonging because I was traveling so much.
That period was also when I had to write this piece. I was feverishly trying to compose in airports and airplanes and hotels and all that.
AS: You've said that the swallow was one idea that seemed like the unifying concept across cultures.
BG: Swallows are just really sort of innocent, charming birds. I never honestly gave them all that much thought until I was traveling extensively and started thinking about how the swallow is this migratory bird. They're birds that travel astounding distances, distances relative to their size that seem almost astronomical.
In China, where I grew up, swallows are this symbol of domesticity or family life and values. So I started thinking about how it was possible for creatures that are so traveled, that are so rarely grounded or sedentary, to still be the symbol of community and togetherness.
I just began wondering how that worked, how that was possible for them, and if there's some way, shape, or form that could also be true for myself.
AS: What is it like to write music for a youth orchestra?
BG: I hadn't really written a piece specifically for youth orchestra before or for young people. In general, I tend to write extremely technical music. So I was wondering if there's any way to connect with youth orchestra musicians and with their unique skill sets.
I started thinking about this notion of emotional transparency or innocence. When you're young, there's a kind of emotional immediacy or a sort of freshness and wide-eyed-ness to the world.
I figured that into the way that I was writing the pieces. I was trying to take in the sights and sounds around me with a similar kind of immediacy and presence.
AS: What should people listen for during the piece?
BG: One thing is the sense of gradual motion. I was thinking about how the orchestra can behave as this massive organism, as this singular community. But it's also a collection of hundreds of musicians, hundreds of instruments. I tried to create the sense of motion from one end of the orchestra to the other — an idea that starts very high in the orchestra, gradually spreads its way down low and then makes its way back up. With that sense of motion, individual instruments can galvanize different sections.
AS: The piece is dedicated to "your families." Who does that include?
BG: The dedication is a little bit broad. It's dedicated to "my families" — plural — because I was thinking about the varied kind of places of belonging that I was able to find and that I feel are pertinent and important to myself.
Ultimately, "Sighting the Swallow" is a love letter to this notion of community and to friendship and to belonging. Those can sustain people even when they're apart from a sense from what they would consider to be their homes.
Interlochen's World Youth Symphony Orchestra will perform "Sighting the Swallow" by Bobby Ge on this weekend's program, along with Claude Debussy's "La Mer" and Ludwig van Beethoven's "Egmont" Overture. The conductor is Matthew Straw.
Listen to the concert live on Classical IPR Sunday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m. EST, or attend in person.
