The inspiration for “Journey of the Endeavour” came to David Benoit at the Museum of Science and Industry while he was watching a video of the space shuttle winding through the streets of Los Angeles, from LAX to the mid-city museum.
“I envisioned the music to be a ballet,” he said of score he would write for the video, which premiered Sunday at the James Armstrong Theatre in Torrance.
Benoit is not adverse to risk. As director of the Asia America Symphony, he has shaken up popular perceptions of classical music by bringing in guest soloists as unlikely as taiko drummer Hiroyuki Hayashida, erhu player Karen Hua-Qi Han (“Memoirs of a Geisha,”) and ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro. The results are usually successful, and always mind-bending.
He’s also composed scores for films, including Clint Eastwood’s “The Stars Fell on Henrietta” and Sally Field’s “The Christmas Tree,” and for the CBS “Peanuts” TV specials.
But as artfully edited as the Endeavour video was, few people would describe the 184-foot-long Endeavour (named after Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour) moving through town at four miles per hour as balletic.
At least not until watching the last space shuttle’s final journey while a live orchestra performs Benoit’s “Journey of the Endeavour.”
Suddenly, the Endeavour is seen to sweep down from the sky, stage left, pirouette on the runway and lunge out on to the apron. Phalanxes of motorcycle police run security for the outsized totemic idol while choreographed armies of workers in hard hats and orange vests clear away tree branches and electrical lines and hold back choruses of the idol’s enraptured admirers.
The journey ends, as all mythic journeys end, with the idol being enthroned in a blindingly white cavern.
Benoit has the good fortune of an orchestra to entrust his compositions to. In addition to directing the Asia America Symphony, he directs the Asia America Youth Orchestra.
At Sunday’s concert, the youth orchestra proved itself up to the challenge of performing Benoit’s premiere by opening the ambitious afternoon with Copland’s “Outdoor Overture;” followed by Alexander Courage’s “Star Trek” theme; “Mars,” from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets;” and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral’ in F Major.'”
That was before intermission.
Following intermission, Benoit conducted the orchestra in “Afternoon Escapade,” composed by Wataru Sugahara, a trombonist in the orchestra. Sugahara’s composition opened with lobby bells that traditionally signal a performance is about to begin, and then, like a sampling of the pre-intermission program, seamlessly covered the musical landscape, from Copland to Beethoven.
Sugahara’s composition was the winner of the 2013 AASA International Composition for Orchestra Competition. He also won last year’s competition.
A premiere performance
Whatever nervousness the young orchestra might have felt approaching the premiere of a composition by their conductor was quieted by the confidence that seemed to grow as the program progressed.
The tension was further eased by an inspirational talk by former Endeavour astronaut Dr. Garret Reisman, a Manhattan Beach resident and now the SpaceX project manager for the Dragon – Falcon 9 crew vehicle.
Reisman said that on the first day in space the highlight is being weightless and “flying like Superman.”
He noted that he was especially appreciative of the youth orchestra because he played clarinet in high school and thought his band was pretty good. “Now I realize we were awful,” he said to appreciative laughter.
Reisman’s assessment was confirmed from the moment the young orchestra signaled the start of Endeavour’s final journey with processional bursts of percussion, trailed by swelling strings, and their welcoming of Endeavour to its final resting place with a blast of horns and rich, deep-toned strings.
