The orchestral version of Michael Daugherty’s Niagara Falls will premiere on 5 June with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta. The 10-minute work was previously created as a work for symphonic wind ensemble and premiered in 1997 with the University of Michigan Symphonic Band.
Niagara Falls appears with the orchestra as part of a programme celebrating the American landscape, both urban and wild, alongside Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Bernstein’s On the Town, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Paul Moravec’s Serenade, inspired by the Great Western Staircase at the New York State Capitol building.
Daugherty’s piece is a “souvenir” of his many trips to the iconic landmark, as well as a meditation on what the composer calls the “American sublime”. A thrilling 10-minute ride over the Falls, it also takes in the haunted house and wax museum that are now part of its history as a tourist destination.
Its principal musical motive is a haunting chromatic phrase of four tones corresponding to the syllables of Niagara Falls, and repeated in increasingly Gothic proportions. A pulsing rhythm in the timpani and lower brass creates an undercurrent of energy, which charges the appearance of the second motif, introduced in canon by the upper brass. The saxophones and clarinets introduce another level of counterpoint, in a bluesy riff with a film noir edge.
Daugherty frequently turns to icons of American popular culture and landscape for musical inspiration. 2022 double concerto Songs of the Open Road, composed for the principal horn and oboe of the Pittsburgh Symphony and premiered by Manfred Honeck, draws on the great American road trip as its creative wellspring; in 2024 George Jackson and the Amarillo Symphony premiered Cadillac Ranch, a 22-minute set of variations inspired by the iconic public art installation located on the outskirts of Amarillo. Watch the PBS documentary about the creation of the work here.
Other recent works in this vein include Blue Electra (2022), a violin concerto for Anne Akiko Meyers, which illustrates four episodes from the life of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, and the 2015 Grammy-winning cello concerto Tales of Hemingway, drawing on the turbulent life of the great American novelist.
Manfred Honeck will return to Daugherty’s music with the Pittsburgh Symphony on 19 June for the world premiere of Dancing in the Streets - a PSO commission celebrating both America’s 250th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of the Martha Graham Dance Company. The work celebrates Gene Kelly, Woody and Marjorie Guthrie, and the centenary of the aforementioned choreographer. An established composer for the dance stage, Daugherty’s most recent scenic work was Summer & Smoke for Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, an evening-length work choreographed by Cathy Marston after Tennessee Williams’ 1948 drama of sexual and spiritual transfiguration in early twentieth-century Mississippi.