Montgomery: Caught by the Wind

Description

Caught by the Wind has two main sources of inspiration: first, by my brother's environmental activist bicycle band tour, The Pleasant Revolution, where he and his disciples traveled thousands of miles promoting awareness of environmental issues, self powering their shows with bicycle generators…The journey of pedaling from country to country by bicycle was a powerful and transcending experience for all band members and crew who dedicated months, even years to the tour. Midway through composing the piece, things took a slightly different turn: while on retreat in upstate New York, I was on a much needed head-clearing walk through the woods and found a branch that had been mangled and torn by the wind. I was fascinated by how the intricate system of stems tangled together revealing a full life cycle in its now disfigured form. The piece, in the end, is one about cycles — whether bicycles or life cycles, or wind cycles — it spins, journeys and winds, gets caught and ultimately comes to its end. (The Pleasant Revolution bike tour, incidentally, is still going in 2016.) — Jessie Montgomery