Symphonic Poem No. 1:  Release
based on platinum prints by Elizabeth Siegfried

(2001)

Commissioned by:
The Bay-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra
The Hopkins Symphony Orchestra

Instrumentation (fits in with instrumentation of Mussorgsky/Ravel "Picture at an Exhibition")
    3333.4431.3perc+timp.harp.strings

Also available in arrangement for double winds.

Duration:
    18:30

Symphonic Poem No. 1: Release is based upon photographer Elizabeth Siegfried's 23 platinum prints that comprise a body of work she calls LifeLines. The images were first shown in the summer of 1999 at Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.  Several of the photographs now hang in the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa, Ontario.  Siegfried's book, LifeLines, containing all of the images and including an introduction by National Book Award Winner Andrea Barrett, is available through Hathaway Press and can be ordered from Ms. Siegfried's website.

Program notes for James Grant’s

“Symphonic Poem No. 1: Release”
after LifeLines, 23 platinum prints by Elizabeth Siegfried

  commissioned by

Hopkins Symphony Orchestra
Bay-Atlantic Symphony
Jed Gaylin, Music Director

    In the nineteenth century, composers embraced an emerging single-movement form as an alternative to what had been the dominant orchestral expression of the time, the multi-movement symphony.  This one-movement form, called the “symphonic poem” or “tone poem” (the term preferred by R. Strauss), is descriptive, or “programmatic” in nature and often uses as its inspiration the non-musical creative narrative of another artist.
    The works of photographer Elizabeth Siegfried caught my attention in the spring of 1998, when I viewed a collection of her platinum prints on exhibition in Baltimore.  Each photograph drew me into a space where visual balance and proportion merged effortlessly with deeply personal, meditative, and at times unsettling content.  Moved by the quiet intensity of her images, I asked Ms. Siegfried if she would allow me to compose a symphonic work based on a selection of her photographs; she agreed.
    Symphonic Poem No. 1: Release is inspired by 23 platinum prints that make up a body of work Siegfried calls LifeLines.  Unlike Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (after drawings and water colors by Victor Hartmann), and Respighi’s Trittico Boticelliano (after three paintings by Boticelli), Release is not literal in its approach to interpreting its source of inspiration; that is, the music does not attempt to “translate” Siegfried’s images into their exact musical counterparts.  Instead, Release (which takes its name from the final image in the LifeLines sequence) seeks to absorb the content of the complete visual narrative and re-express it in musical terms.
    The images in LifeLines, viewed in sequence, address the complex issues of aging and the passage of time; how we, like all elements of creation, swim in a constantly evolving sea of overlapping cycles: as one expression of life concludes its cycle of emergence, development, decay, and release, another expression of life begins.
    Release responds to that eternal ebb and flow, that counterpoint of overlapping life cycles; and to the emotional and spiritual journey we each face as we pass through life’s stages.  Underlying tension searches for resolution and sings of longing and vulnerability.  Increasing anxiety erupts into stubborn defiance. Cathartic transformation holds the promise of gradual understanding and eventual peace; and the final process of letting go makes way for new life and new dreams.  Our own release approaches, motions to us, embraces us like the ocean.  And we, too, let go.
    Symphonic Poem No. 1: Release is dedicated to David N. W. Grant, Jr., my father, whose own gentle release on December 4, 2000, is remembered in this music.

NOTES: James Grant is available to present a pre-concert lecture  on Symphonic Poem No. 1: Release that includes slides of Elizabeth Siegfried's work.  Eight of Elizabeth Siegfried’s 23 platinum prints that comprise LifeLines are available for display in the concert hall lobby.  At intermission, Ms. Siegfried is available for a book-signing of her recently-published book, LifeLines.  The book includes all 23 images and an introduction by National Book Award winner Andrea Barrett.  A portion of the proceeds will go to the orchestra.

The composer extends his thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Thomas L. Reed, Mr. & Mrs. Robert V. Walsh, and anonymous for their generous support of the commissioning of Release..

To view Elizabeth Siegfried’s work, visit www.ElizabethSiegfried.com.

  About Elizabeth Siegfried

Noted photographer Elizabeth Siegfried works primarily with the difficult and time-consuming platinum process.  She studied photography in the United States and in Canada and has exhibited her work in galleries across both countries.  Siegfried has received numerous awards in recognition of her fine and original artistic technique, including residency at the prestigious Banff Centre for the Arts (Alberta, Canada).  In 1997, she was interviewed by Peter Gzowski on CBC Morningside, and her work has been reproduced and discussed in such distinguished publications as ARTNews, Shutterbug, C Magazine, Photographers Forum, and Camera Arts.  Her hardbound book, LifeLines, can be ordered from bookstores and is available on her website.

Comments on the images in Elizabeth Siegfried's book, LifeLines:

Among the countless volumes of lavishly illustrated books that stack our coffee tables and bookstore shelves, few today demonstrate the freshness of purpose and resolve of story-telling that once epitomized the nature of the photographer’s book. Elizabeth Siegfried’s new release entitled LifeLines is one such book. Acknowledged for her creative use of the rare process of platinum printing, Ms. Siegfried has sensitively sequenced approximately two dozen prints that simultaneously reflect on the contemplative realm of the self and its intersection with larger realm of nature. She employs a dualistic approach to her subject: fragmented images of the human figure intermingle, from one page to the next, with the stuff of nature, including shells and bones. The visual echo with which these pictures resonate rings clear—all things are bound in a temporal existence, mediated by the inevitable consequences of time. As a complement to Siegfried’s photographic essay, which also bears out a contemporary investigation of the autobiographical, the renowned writer Andrea Barrett contributes an introduction that seizes upon the photographs’ poetic and metaphorical reliance on time-honored themes. In word and image, Lifelines demonstrates the power of pictures to tell stories that are at once intensely personal and universal.

Therese Mulligan, Curator of Photography
George Eastman House

LifeLines is Elizabeth Siegfried's reconciliation with aging, situated within an exploration of the profundities of existence. Comprised of evocative self-portraits and images of resplendent nature, this photographic series depicts a woman entwined in the cycles of nature, swept up in the stream of time. But ultimately for Siegfried, the lines of life do not divide and separate but run in tandem with one another. To traverse her visual narrative is to embark on a journey in which ambivalence yields to acceptance. Intimate, personal and transcendently beautiful, LifeLines is a singular accomplishment.

Scott McLeod, Editor
Prefix Photo

Siegfried’s images are personal and psychological in nature. She presents familiar objects, gestures and moments, which are her own unique references that she universalizes for the viewer's contemplation. These symbols become trigger points for memories, dreams, fears and illusions. LifeLines is Siegfried's own visual narrative.

Grace Schaub
Camera Arts Magazine

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