By NANCY RASKAUSKAS
The Entertainer | Posted: Friday, November 7, 2008 12:00 am
Composer turns passion about Oregon Trail into symphonic music
"I think I've found what I like to do," said Timothy Scott Misner on a recent morning as he sat at a keyboard and computer in his Northwest Corvallis home.
Misner is a composer, and a virtually self-taught one at that, aside from a few music classes in junior college.
This weekend, after more than three years of work, Misner, who has worked as an integrated circuit layout engineer at Hewlett-Packard for 15 years, will hear his first major orchestral composition "Sketches from the Oregon Trail" debut at two Willamette Valley Community Orchestra concerts in Albany and Corvallis.
Misner has been attending all the orchestra rehearsals for the last seven weeks, to hear his piece being practiced and make adjustments as needed.
"It's coming along," Misner said. "It's probably one of the more difficult pieces for this community orchestra because there are just so many different time changes and things like that."
"Sketches" is the musical portrayal of the story of one of the largest voluntary mass migrations in recorded history: the pioneers' journey over 2,000 miles of endless rolling prairie, sweltering highland deserts, and rugged mountain ranges in order to reach their "promised land" known as the Oregon Territory.
The piece is comprised of 10 movements and has a performance time of about 30 minutes. However, the Willamette Valley Community Orchestra will play only six selected movements at the concert: "Sunrise on an Open Prairie," "Buckskins and Bonnets," "Hoedown at Independence Rock," "Campfire Lullaby," "Early Snowfall in the Blue Mountains" and "OREGON! The Promised Land."
Misner found inspiration for the massive composition in numerous research materials, including a photo journal of the trail by Bill Moeller.
"I wrote to him because this particular book had been very inspirational to me," Misner said.
That thank you note sent to Moeller's publisher led to a chance meeting in Santa Rosa, Calif., and a friendship built on shared interests between the photographer and composer.
Misner eventually decided to add experience to his research with a 10-day road trip with his teenage son Kai, now 16, following the Oregon Trail from Independence, Mo., to Oregon City.
At the time of the trip, Misner had about half the piece written.
"I think it solidified for me, even more, what an awesome task these people set upon themselves," he said.
"I went the whole way over 2,000 miles in an airconditioned car, very comfortable, sleeping in motels."
"Between 1830s to1860s roughly about half a million people crossed the trail. It took about five or six months, mostly on foot doing up to 20 miles a day," Misner said. "There was harsh weather, disease, accidents, dangerous river crossings, famine, the list goes on."
Some of Misner's most entrancing melodies have come out of sections meant to portray these dire circumstances.
"In 'Buckskins and Bonnets' near the end there is this place where it kind of slows down - almost like the wife is getting kind of melancholy, thinking on if this the right thing to do and missing everyone back home - but then (the tempo) it jumps right back, it's almost like the husband says 'move 'em out' and she just kind of comes out of her daydream trance," Misner said.
"Early Snowfall in the Blue Mountains" takes on a similar cinematic quality.
"It's basically a blizzard. There's a lot of stuff flying around," Misner said. "I'm a very visual person."
Misner's work was influenced my several American composers, including Aaron Copland.
At this weekend's concerts, listeners will be able to draw their own comparisons as the orchestra plays Copland's "Quiet City," George Gershwin's "An American in Paris," Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" and Calvin Custer's "The American Frontier."
Willamette Valley Community Orchestra director Sean Paul Mills was delighted to bring the premiere of "Sketches" to local audiences.
"It's really relevant to this region," Mills said.
"When I founded the orchestra, one of my main goals was to highlight local talent, and not just performers or soloists, but also as writers and composers of music," Mills said.
Misner's piece also balanced well with the rest of the program, according to Mills.
"Here we're looking at American composers going back as far as Aaron Copland and George Gershwin, to the beginning of the 20th century and then moving all the way up to something, that for all intents, is just barely completed. The ink isn't even dry on the page."
Check it out
"Made in America," Willamette Valley Community Orchestra, 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, at the First Christian Church of Albany, 432 Ferry St. S.W., and 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9, at Ashbrook Independent School, 4045 S.W. Research Way, Corvallis. Preconcert discussions at 3:30 p.m. Admission: $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and college students, free for youths. Tickets: Sid Stevens Jewelers and Gracewinds Music. Information: 829-3932 or www.wvcommunityorchestra.com.