JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — The full moon turned the Sonoran desert an eerie blue.
“Rose rides quietly into town and makes her way to the jailhouse,” composer George S. Clinton said. “She quickly subdues the guard and frees Jed from his cell. Together at last, they ride off into the night, the ill-gotten gold stashed in her saddlebags.”
The dramatic Western scene was the first of several narrated by Clinton during the Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra’s first concert of the season Sept. 20 at Mount Pisgah Church. The performance marked the start of a new chapter for the orchestra with new Music Director Henry Cheng conducting. It also welcomed youth with a new policy of providing free tickets to all students.
Before each of the five parts of his violin concerto, “The Rose of Sonora,” Clinton narrated the story of Rose and Jed, inviting the audience to paint their own vivid mental pictures. Clinton is an award-winning film and TV composer who has made music for “Mortal Kombat,” several “Austin Powers” movies and “Wild Things,” among others.
“The way this is going to go down is there’s not going to be a movie. You’ll get to create the movie in your head,” Clinton said.
The concert was the first of the orchestra’s “IMAGINE: Your Playlist” season, which aims to make classical music more accessible. Cheng, who was selected in May, said he thinks it is essential for orchestras to make music that speaks directly to the community.
Cheng replaces the late founder and maestro J. Wayne Baughman, who died November 2023 after battling pancreatic cancer.
“It’s sharing stories that I hope connect with the community, whether it’s exploring ideas of grief, ideas of overcoming and how we’re actually much more connected than ever,” Cheng said previously. “Often, we feel more lonely than ever, right? But music is that bridge.”
During intermission, Mary Jo Malowney said she has been deeply impressed with the direction Cheng is taking the orchestra.
“I’m very excited to see what he has planned,” she said.
Malowney, a retired teacher, said she supports the idea of providing free tickets to students. By bringing young people into the concert hall, the orchestra can reach new ears while expanding the minds of the community’s youngest members, she said.
An education that includes the arts is about creating a complete person, and music plays an essential role, she said.
“We need to get the next generation involved,” Malowney said. “We need to pass all this down to them.”
Vanessa Han, a 12th grader, and Violet Han, a ninth grader, said the performance was entertaining and intellectually stimulating.
Clinton’s work directly spoke to Vanessa’s studies in her AP research class. She is learning about music that tells a story.
“It was like watching a movie for me,” she said, adding, “I could tell when she was riding the horse … It was also super epic, the ending part.”
Violet said she particularly enjoyed hearing the orchestra live because she could pick up on every nuance of sound.
“I could visualize it in my head,” she said. After the concert, Clinton said Western music has a special way of speaking to imaginations.
The genre’s ability to evoke space and movement are particularly notable, he said.
“It’s almost opera,” Clinton said. “It doesn’t hold back.”
Written by Jon Wilcox