FREEDOM’S RING

for orchestra

(1979) Duration: 9:00

Freedom's Ring was my first composition for large orchestra and was my thesis score for my M.M. Composition at the University of Michigan. The work was premiered in Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan in February 1980, by the University of Michigan Orchestra, Gustav Meier conducting.

The title is a reference to the last two lines of the first verse of My Country, 'Tis of Thee:
From ev'ry mountainside
Let Freedom Ring!

The score is based on the first three notes of the tune (in the Key of C: C-D-B). They are heard clearly in the solo cello in measures 11 and 12, with the last of the three notes transposed an octave higher. The music transforms and combines this small motive throughout.

Freedom's Ring was composed around the time the Iranian hostage crisis, which was a diplomatic standoff between the United States and Iran. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days from the fall of 1979 to early 1981, after a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The tense aura of "Freedom's Ring" is reflective of the mood of the United States about this standoff.

– Steve Rouse