(happy music)

- You'll note along the wall here,

that is the lobby and gallery space.

Along this wall, between the two main doors,

allowing for very public exhibition and project

that you can actually see from Wesleyan Drive.

- As a liberal arts institution,

it's appropriate that we now have an iconic structure,

as you come onto the campus.

- A good Fine and Performing Arts Center,

it's a front porch to engage the community directly

with the amazing things

that have always been happening on this campus.

- This is acoustically balanced for a large loft

above the actual audience,

so that the sound will dissipate above the audience's head,

instead of reverberating constantly on top of them.

- Extreme amounts of thought went into

expanding the student experience,

because they will spend more time in that building

than they will in their homes

for the next four years of their lives.

- You have this gigantic stage, but at the same time

the furthest back you're ever going to be is 40 or 50 feet.

It's fantastically intimate.

We can bring in world class artists,

Broadway level productions.

That's something that's gonna make the space

really unique in the future.

(happy music)

(uplifting music)

- So this work, of course,

was a surprise commission from Mr. Goode,

and you all know his wife

and for the inauguration of the new

Virginia Wesleyan Performing Arts Center.

So what kind of information were you given

when you got the commission?

Were there sort of specific requests of things

about the piece, or was it pretty open ended?

- It was really open ended.

Mr. Goode asked for it to be choir and orchestra,

and he chose the text.

One is a except from a very long Wordsworth epic.

And then the second one is There Will Be Stars

by Sarah Teasdale.

Early 2018, Bryson Mortenson who does the choir

at Virginia Wesleyan University,

and he had seen a choral piece I'd just finished

and he reached out to me

and said he was looking to commission a new piece.

When everything got finalized,

I asked if I could come out to Virginia Wesleyan.

I knew that since a place was really important

in the design and in the structure of this piece,

I spent a few days observing the choir,

working with Bryson, walking around campus,

walking through the woods, there's a beautiful trail.

(happy music)

Since the lyrics talked about stars over the place,

I just went on Google and I looked up March 30, 2019

at which stars would be the brightest over Virginia Beach.

I recalled that in medieval times,

music was often thought of as a set of ratios

and they talked about the harmony of the spheres

and the relationships between celestial bodies

and so I looked up some of these ratios

between the orbits of Venus and Earth

and the sun and Jupiter.

Those began to inform choices that I was gonna make

about form, how long different sections were going to be.

But also about harmony.

- What I think is really interesting about Josh's music

is that it's something we'd really classify as avant garde.

So he's taking instruments, but asking them to play

a lot of times in really unconventional ways.

- I spent a lot of time thinking about

how do I get different groups to sing

independently of one another.

It's not the sort of thing that,

especially large ensembles like this,

may be used to performing.

- Ready to try it?

(man plays piano)

(choir sings)

Particularly in classical music,

we tend to get stuck on the idea

that the only music of value is the music by dead composers.

And it's so important to realize

that there are composers alive today

who are making music that respond to the issues of today.

That respond to the zeitgeist.

And one of the best ways to really drive that home

for student musicians is to put them face to face

with a composer.

- I have a comment. - Okay.

- When we're singing the second half,

when I close my eyes,

and we're singing about the stars,

I see Mrs. Woode and her husband as the two stars.

And then I see them on Earth

and there's like stars surrounding them

and that's all they see.

That love?

That's what I'm feeling.

And I've never had a song that made me feel that way

and it just makes me feel like one day,

maybe I can have love like that.

- (laughs) Can I give you a hug?

That was awesome.

- I've never thought about that.

- Not all the music that I compose is beautiful by design,

but I wanted this to be comfortable and optimistic.

I wanted it to line up with what I believe the community

here at Wesleyan feels about the future

of this Performing Arts Center

and the future of the Performing Arts Programs,

and the future of the University.

(gentle music)

(background chatter)

(intense choral music)

(audience applauds)

(intense music)

♪ Every time the Earth circles our orbit ♪

- I think one of the things that makes the writing style

really unique is that you expect

all of the performers to be independent at different times.

And a lot of the time in choral music,

we're looking for unity,

we're looking for a homogenous kinda sound.

And a lot of the times, he says,

"I'm not gonna tell you how or when or what to sing here,

"but you need to sing something that kinda looks like this.

"And we're just gonna experiment

"and we're gonna see how that comes together."

So that's a lot of why I picked him,

because I knew this was gonna give them an experience

that we couldn't get with any other composer

out there right now.

(intense choral music)

- In the Hampton Roads area,

there's a lot of cool stuff going on.

This is an exciting place,

and I hope I can work here more often.

♪ Songs ♪

♪ Forever ♪

♪ Songs ♪

(orchestra plays)

(audience applauds)

(intense choral music)