Wilderness Pastoral

A group of Eastern music students finds inspiration in the great outdoors.

During the summer of 1829, the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, age 20, journeyed with a family friend to the Hebrides. Then, as now, these remote Scottish islands contained all the ingredients of Romantic fascination: towering cliffs battered by powerful storms, sun-dappled hillsides spiked with basalt, ghostly moorlands haunted by Celtic mysteries. Little wonder that some of Mendelssohn’s greatest work emerged from the place.

The sublime national parks and wildlands of the American West have long been the setting for similar flights of inspiration, as a group of young EWU composers recently discovered for themselves. Led by Jonathan Middleton, an EWU professor of music theory and composition, eight members of Middleton’s composition course in September spent a week at one of the greatest of these Western treasures, Grand Teton National Park. There they sought, as Mendelssohn did in Scotland, to find inspiration for 3-to-5-minute “pastoral” compositions, several of which will be performed by the Spokane Symphony Orchestra during a joint appearance with the EWU Orchestra in Showalter Auditorium on March 12.

James Lowe wasn’t born in the Hebrides, but the native of Scotland knows well their allure. As the Spokane Symphony’s conductor and music director, he also knows that using music to convey the magic of such places isn’t easy. During a visit to Middleton’s class this fall, Lowe gently probed and prodded the young composers, helping them articulate their ideas and ambitions. He also apprised them of the challenges involved in preparing music for performance. One recurring theme? Don’t overdo it. “Here’s my thing,” Lowe said. “The greatest music expresses everything you want in the simplest possible way.”

The Tetons trip was funded in part by a $5,000 donation from a music-loving donor, as well as a grant from the recently established Youngs Endowment for National Park Studies (see our Spring/Summer 2025 issue). For the student participants, the experience was priceless. “Thank you for giving us this opportunity to learn and grow as composers,” wrote one of them, Joey Gagne. “I will remember it for the rest of my life.”