A native of Washington, DC, John Christopher Wineglass received a BS in music from American University, and a Masters in Music Composition with an emphasis on the media from New York University. In addition to his many multi-media music contributions, he has also composed extensively for the concert hall.
Initially a zoomed brainchild collaboration between Wineglass, Maestra Barbara Day Turner (San Jose Chamber Orchestra) and Maestra Rei Hotoda (Fresno Philharmonic) – Alone/Together was ultimately co-commissioned by two more additional California orchestras as well - Monterey Symphony, where Wineglass is in residency, and with great support of the subject matter from Maestro Carl St. Clair of Pacific Symphony - all coming together to express a shared interest in new music that responds to the extraordinary nature of life during the 2020 pandemic and the catastrophic circumstances accompanying this global crisis.
This work can also be aptly summed up in a few excerpted journal entries by the composer during the creation of this work. In his own (unedited) words....
ALONE TOGETHER (journal entry)
November 20th, 2020 8:08 pm
As I sequestered ‘alone’ quite literally to finish writing this work in walking to a market store near my sponsored beachfront quarters, I was verbally accosted by two laughing males who thought it would be funny with a bullhorn on top of their sporty Audi SUV to go around this pristine neighborhood and spew out the expletive ‘nigger’ in of ALL places where I normally do a lot of writing – Shell Beach, CA – a beautiful central coastline between LA and San Francisco. Truly... what world are we living in? Let me rephrase that – what world are some of us living in and others (millions in fact) choose to turn a blind eye?
As I dwelled heavily into this work this particular week - there were parts of America that I recognized and parts that I knew were always there BUT certainly didn’t recognize… apparently, they don’t hide behind ghostly bed sheets anymore in this extremely politically divided time and in the midst of a global pandemic. Was I still in the times of my just recently deceased parents last year of the 60’s and the riots during MLK or was this 2020? Have we NOT as a nation grown… at all? It was dreamlike for me – an unbelievable seeping dystopian euphoria in a way. Were we going backwards to private and now George Floyd-esque public lynchings of the past. Indeed ‘Strange Pandemic Times’…. my working title of the first movement. And this is just personally what was happening to me in composing this work – outside of my own disposition here was a world constantly shifting particularly here in America with an unbalanced demagogue at the helm with every day MAJOR unstable shifts in the temperature of this country.
This present-day world of 2020 is reflected in this new composition by the constant shifts in tonal centers or atonality if u will – without tonality… without centeredness… swelling major-minor chords in the strings without any sense of stability or normalness. Give me normal please. There would be glimmers of hope – times of possible brilliance – yet brought back to a current dismal reality. A longing for common ground but finding no footing… no continuity. Abrupt silences… alone… many intubated. No foundation… lost in a midst of unbelief of what I was witnessing with my very own eyes in this land of ‘equality’. The universe repeatedly brings this up… again… and again before our very own eyes - until we learn.
But… I still believe in and have hope… A Ray of Hope (working title for 2nd movement)… a hope deferred at the moment but a hope nonetheless. A hope that in this struggle together - we will come out TOGETHER somehow and in some way – stronger, more wise and vigilant.
John-Wineglass photo courtesy of Stockton Symphony Association. ©2009 Jacob Perl