El Sol Caliente (2015) 25'

program note

El Sol Caliente was written for the New World Symphony in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Miami Beach. The work is a collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison and part of our ongoing series of City Symphonies that include Gotham (New York) and Dystopia (Los Angeles). The players are arranged on the stage in an architectural pattern to allow for sound to move spatially through the orchestra. These sound waves ebb and flow,  capturing the wildness and unpredictability of the elements on this tiny fragile island. From the first note the music resembles the fury of a tropical storm.

Newsreels, tourism clips, home movies, as well as Morrison’s newly shot footage, fill the screen. Bathing beauties, hurricanes, families vacationing, and art deco hotels are there to capture our imagination of this iconic destination. We see men wrestling alligators and manatees, symbolically wresting South Florida from the swamp and into the world’s imagination as a tourist destination. Yet this fragile barrier island lying off a continental peninsula at sea level will probably not survive this century without a drastic intervention on its behalf. How will we wrest Miami Beach from nature in the 21st century?

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