James Curnow heard his latest composition performed live for the first time yesterday, but it wasn't at a concert hall somewhere in Europe or Japan. This time, his work was being performed by a group of middle-school students in Davidson County that included his grandson.
He wouldn't have had it any other way, he said.
Listening to the students reminded him of when he first picked up an instrument as a child. He had no idea that music would one day take him around the world as a classical composer and conductor. He even had a chance to write a piece for the 1997 U.S. Olympics.
"That's how I got started -- in band," he told the students.
Curnow's grandson, Aidan Simms, is a seventh-grader at South Davidson Middle School who plays the same instrument his grandfather started his career off with -- a baritone horn.
Andy Browning, the band director at the middle school, found out that Simms' grandfather was a world-renowned composer and asked Aidan if he would get Curnow to write a piece for the band. Curnow has written more than 200 works and owns his own company in Nicholasville, Ky.
So Aidan called up his grandfather, and it turned out that Curnow was already fast at work on a piece inspired by a recent trip with his wife to Phantom Canyon in Colorado, which follows an old railroad route.
The resulting piece is called Legend of Phantom Canyon, which the band performed during a concert last night at Camp Walter Johnson in Denton.
"It was really cool," said Aidan Simms about his grandfather writing the piece for his middle-school band.
The piece is at first somber and slow and then gradually speeds up as horns blare loudly. Over three minutes, it builds into a crescendo until the piece ends in a percussion-heavy flair.
There's a creepy tension in the piece, which is apropos since it tells in music the legend of a crew on a night train bound for Cripple Creek. That night, the train's lights briefly fall on a man in prison garb walking along the tracks. His prison number is clearly visible, and the engineer reports the sighting to the Colorado State Penitentiary at the next station. It turns out that the number belongs to a man who was executed days before.
Lisa Simms, Aidan's mother, said that her family was imbued with a love of music. She is a percussionist. Her brother, Jeff, plays the trombone in a jazz band in Chicago, and her younger sister, Amy, is a professional singer in Dallas.
Aidan has been playing for the past three years and practices on his grandfather's old baritone.
At the end of the practice, students peppered Curnow with questions. He encouraged them to keep playing and to never give up if they really love music. He told them that they could be like his uncle, who played music way into his 90s.
"You can keep playing forever," he said.
â– Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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