DESCRIPTION:
CR Prairie Wind Symphony
Festival Preview Concert
The "I Am" Experience:
Different members of the Prairie High School Band program have performed the piece "I Am" more than 20 times since it was commissioned and composed in February 1990. The "premiere performance" was given at the Progressive Band Concert in April 1990.
This stirring piece of original music was composed by Andrew Boysen, Jr., then a junior at the University of Iowa School of Music majoring in composition and conducting. It was commissioned by the Prairie High School Band as a tribute to the life of one of their friends, Lynn Jones, who was killed in a tragic car accident as he made his way through dense fog enroute to school on February 7 1990.
Commissioning a piece of music to be written allowed each of us a chance to reflect on the time that we were abole to spend with Lynn Jones, and it gave us something positive to concentrate on during a time that was very difficult emotionally. Because the work was a commission, special ideas and requests could be included that reminded us of Lynn, and what his involvement in the band and the choir programs meant to all of us. The piece utilizes the baritone saxophone (Lynn's instrument) as a solo voice, some chant-like singing by the band to represent Lynn's enjoyment of choir, a short section that is reminiscent of the foggy morning and the accident itself, and the use of the words "I Am" which came from a poem that Lynn had written about himself just days before the accident.
We constantly talked with the students about how positive the entire commissioning experience turned out to be, without full knowledge of the true magnitude of what we were saying! In the time since the piece was composed, it has been published by the Niel Kjos Music Company, and is among the top selling pieces of all available band literature in the Kjos music catalog! "I Am" is now being purchased and performed by bands from literally all around the world!
"I Am" is performed approximately every 3 years at Prairie so that every high school band member performs it or experiences it (as was promised to Lynn's family).
In my opinion, it is THE most moving piece of music ever written or performed.