Karnak was commissioned by The Bozeman Symphony Society on January 6, 1997 in commemoration of its Thirtieth Anniversary Season. Originally asked to compose a special fanfare, I had no intentions of creating another stereotypical “flourish of flashy trumpets.” Rather, I sought to erect a living monument of sound which would serve as an historical landmark - to call forth the memories of once insurmountable obstacles that were, with no less than superhuman faith and perseverance, eventually transcended, and to thus muster one’s courage to march boldly into the dark unknown.

The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, in one of his Sonnets to Orpheus, expressed the deep wonder he felt upon beholding the massive pillars at the ruins of the Egyptian temple at Karnak for the first time:

“Oh the only presence in Karnak, the column, the column,
that outlived the once eternal temple.”

The Temple covered nearly 200 acres and it is said that the great cathedrals of Milan, Notre Dame, and St. Peters could all fit inside this enormous structure. Interestingly, the roof of this ancient temple no longer exists, but the giant supports still powerfully stand. They were the products of an extra-ordinary human will, and now, stripped of their original function by the unstoppable erosion of time, they serve only one purpose - to stand up.

Or perhaps there is more. One cannot help but appreciate the vast scale of such magnificent human achievements in light of life’s inevitable decay. We know we will die, poised on the very brink of our own extinction, yet still we strive to transcend our own mortality, in defiance of fate. We hold our heroes very dear to our hearts - we praise them and their achievements, and in praising we ourselves begin to succumb to the glory of it all. In the words of Rumi:

“You that come to birth and bring the mysteries,
your voice-thunder fills us with joy.

Roar, lion of the heart,
and tear me open!”

It is in this spirit that I wrote Karnak for Matthew Savery and the Bozeman Symphony, in hopes that it shall remain a great pillar of culture for another 30 years.