"Blue Cathedral," the orchestral work of lesbian composer Jennifer Higdon, is one of her more famous pieces. Beginning with light chimes, soft strings and lilting flutes, you'd never guess this work has had more than 400 performances worldwide.
But as it progresses it grows into a beautiful, powerful and rhythmic presentation, not unlike the trajectory of Higdon's own career. Higdon received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for herïż˝"Violin Concerto."
Higdon's recently curated piece, "Chiscapes," a four-movement work where each movement has been inspired by a different iconic Chicago building, will be performed June 8-9 as part of the final concert, "City-Scapes," of the 25th Anniversary season of the Chicago Sinfonietta, led by Music Director Mei-Ann Chen and partnered with the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
The composers and their architectural muses include: Armando Bayolo on the Modern Wing of the Art Institute Chicago, designed by Renzo Piano; Vivian Fung on the Aqua building, designed by Jeanne Gang; Jonathan Holland on the S. R. Crown Hall, designed by Ludwig Mies van de Rohe and Chris Rogerson on the Jay Pritzker Pavilion of Millennium Park, designed by Frank Gehry
Higdon's own original work, "River Sings a Song to Trees"—the second movement of her piece, "City Scape," an ode to the city park as a respite from the sometimes-harsh landscape of urban life—will also be performed as part of the concert.
There is little wonder where Higdon found inspiration to write about the green hideaways tucked away in cities. She and her partner, Cheryl Lawson, both grew up in the eastern foothills of rural Tennessee.
That upbringing has also inspired the opera Higdon has been working on, based on Charles Frazier's novel Cold Mountain, which has occupied the last of her 16 months when she isn't traveling.
"Even though it's a Civil War story, I've known people like that, in the 20th century, scarily, and so it just was a natural story," she said. "I recognized the characters, their language patterns, and everything they say and do, it was very familiar."
"A lot of people die and a lot of people fall in love, which seems to be the two big ingredients in opera," she said.
The Santa Fe Opera commissioned Higdon for the work, though she usually writes 10-12 classic composition commissions a year. This is her first opera.
Higdon said growing up and falling in love in rural Tennessee, where her and Lawson first met playing flute together in high school, was an opera of its own. She said the two were still very much closeted at school.
"It was full of the typical teenage drama. Her parents weren't too happy about the whole thing," she said.
Higdon said her parents, whom she described as hippies in the sixties, were accepting of her sexuality. But Lawson's parents, who she said were religious, were not. The two became partners Higdon's senior year. Each lived about thirty miles from the school, in opposite directions.
According to Higdon, the two spent time together in the marching band, which also competed with other schools and won the first trophy for its high school at a regional competition in Alabama. She said they practiced every day for three to four hours, on their feet, playing the Beatles and Elton John alongside the Tennessee Waltz.
Higdon and Lawson became partners when Higdon was a senior, and a year later the two were separated by more than five hundred miles, when Higdon went to school at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
"We were in love enough, I think the relationships incredibly sustained over being separated for two years and from her parents not being very happy about the fact they we were together," she said. "But she hung in there. She knew what she wanted. I'm really impressed. She left home and they didn't give her any support for college, so it was impressive."
The two paid for school by working odd jobs, getting scholarships and taking out loans.
And now the two are accustomed to being separated—Higdon travels for work—but find solace in their home together in Philadelphia.
"I was really running around a lot. I ran between New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Vancouver. There was a lot of back and forth between these places," Higdon said. "But it's always good to get back to composing, just to get back home and kind of focus."
Higdon said writing music isn't easy because it requires exposing one's heart, and having the unconditional love of her partner makes that possible. She said Lawson also helps keep her grounded, and realistic.
"It's amazing how much of a comfort that is, regardless of what happens, whether what you write is awful or good," she said. "And reminding you that you do still need to take out the trash even of you do have a Pulitzer Prize."
"I think that kind of thing is really healthy. I feel extremely fortunately, really to have found someone. It is kind of the cliché of the soul mate but she is really a soul mate."
Higdon said it was a shocking moment when she found out she had won a Pulitzer; she's the only Pulitzer-winning composer she knows of to have come from a marching band background.
Higdon said at times all composers have doubts, but that Lawson was always cheering her own. The night they got the news, sitting at a concert performance, Higdon found herself reflecting on it all.
"Thinking back about Cheryl and I meeting in band, when I think back about how hard we worked to get through college, it was a little bit of an overwhelming experience," she said. "It still is if I think about it."
"And often I think she's inspired a lot of music in a certain sense. It's been interesting writing "Cold Mountain" because it's such a love story, it makes me stop and think about all the drama in high school and you can kind of draw on that sort of connection. It's great to have someone that is a rock. It's really kind of an amazing thing."
"City-Scapes" will be performed Saturday, June 8, at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville and Sunday, June 9, at the Symphony Center in Chicago. Tickets range from $26 to $50, with special $10 pricing available to students. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Chicago Sinfonietta at 312-236-3681, ext. 2, or visiting www.chicagosinfonietta.org .
