Update Title: 8FFC76F0-DC0B-43F5-A9D8-108A5BE9C3FD

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Commissioned by the Indiana Orchestra Consortium for multiple performances by the fifteen member orchestras of the IOC organization during the 1993/94 season, Spirits is intended to be evocative of the spirit and aura (and era!) of six notable individuals with significant Indiana connections.  The six movements are almost miniature tone poems, each quite different from the other...

I.  Jonestown Echo (Rev. Jim Jones) - eerie, unsettling, jabbing and edgy, yet with certain undertones of optimism;  ghostly, restless, buried brass "Rock of Ages" fused with clustered strings marks the closing section.

II.  Detour to Nowhere (John Dillinger) - this piece is evocative of the 1930+s/40+s gangster +epic+ - a sincere parody, with more than passing influences from the Hollywood world of film noir--Bogart/Becall/Cagney/Edw. G. Robinson, etc. The movement is big, brassy, flamboyant, loud, shifting, intentionally +Hollywood+, and loaded with high driving anxiety--and diminished chords!

III.  Limberlost (Gene Stratton Porter) - like the author and her turn-of-the-century novels, this movement is gentle, sentimental, wholesome, natural, dignified, delicate, innocent, and sincere.  The harmonic language is very tonal.  The orchestration is light...intimate.

IV.  One for the Gipper (Knute Rockne) - football field marching band music gone insane.  A light-hearted, +wink of the eye+ - +tongue in cheek+, (but not necessarily disrespectful) schizophrenic musical look at the sports obsession in Indiana--aborted marches, Tchaikovsky parodies, whistles, drum corps lines, shouting, and obnoxious brass players.

V.   Ben Bonhommes Rouges (Ezra Pound vs. Gen. Lew Wallace) - a +strange bed-fellow+ movement, both authors had strong connections to Crawfordsville, IN and Wabash College.  Bonhommes Rouges is the brand of cigarettes Pound had smuggled into this "no-smoking" town in the early 20th century. Ben is drawn from Wallace+s important novel, Ben Hur--a work Crawfordsville was much more supportive of than Pound+s experimental poetry and lifestyle!  The work ends with a gentle, chamber-scored Victorian-style waltz--for the era, and for Pound+s favorite musical style, solo piano

VI.  The Last Ride: West of Eden (James Dean) - fast, robust, driving, incorporating a somewhat 1950+s jazzy influence with more dissonant and strident modern rhythms--and with a screeching crash at the end. --Michael Schelle

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"In Spirits, Indiana native Michael Schelle provided new insights into some well-known Indiana characters, including Rev. Jim Jones, John Dillinger, Gene Straton-Porter, Knute Rockne, and James Dean. . . . In 'Jonestown Echo' (Rev. Jim Jones), the stark aura of the tropical tragedy was projected by softly sustained, yet dissonant tone clusters interrupted by violent explosions in the battery. The strings played without vibrato, creating an eerie and disquieting atmosphere, while the concluding muted brass chorale quoted a hymn of redemption, 'Rock of Ages.'  'Detour to Nowhere' (John Dillinger) found the drums used as submachine guns and the music sounding like a cops 'n' robbers shoot  'em up. The quiet and gentle 'Limberlost' (Gene Stratton-Porter) was a welcome relief from the preceding fireworks. 'One for the Gipper' (Knute Rockne) was a manic celebration for marching band, with the drum cadences, stamping feet, whistles and shouts that ended with a 'Victory March' quote by wah-wah brasses. 'The Last Ride-West of Eden' (James Dean) was five minutes of fast-driving, intense and jazzy dissonance. The concluding scene, not sound, was the entire orchestra frozen, as if playing. Complete silence. Wow."
-- Jay Miller, SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE

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