If you don’t know Kris Bowers’ name, chances are you’ve heard his music. He gained prominence through genre-crossing collaborations between musicians, including Jay Z, Kanye West, Kyle Abraham, chef Fredrik Berselius, Kobe Bryant, Mahershala Ali, Justin Simien, and Ava DuVernay. He has composed music for film, television, documentaries, and video games, including The Snowy Day (for which he won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition in 2017), Dear White People, Green Book, When They See Us, Black Monday, Madden NFL 20 and Madden NFL 21, Mrs. America, Bridgerton, Bad Hair, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Respect, and King Richard.
At the same time, Bowers is a genre-crossing musician in his own right. An official Steinway Artist, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Fred Hersch, Eric Reed, and Kenny Barron. In 2011, Bowers won The Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, receiving a recording contract with Concord Records and personal acknowledgment from special event honoree Aretha Franklin. In 2014, after he released his first album, Heroes + Misfits, iTunes named Bowers one of 12 “Artists to Watch.” In 2016, Bowers was selected to perform at the White House for International Jazz Day, hosted by President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama. He has collaborated with many artists to create unique performance art experiences and installations with Abraham.In.Motion (led by choreographer Kyle Abraham), Alvin Ailey Dance Company, and artist and professor Ekene Ijeoma.
In 2019, the American Youth Symphony commissioned Kris Bowers to write a concerto, the world premiere of which was given by the AYS and soloist Charles Yang at Walt Disney Concert Hall on February 8, 2020. The performance was ultimately featured in the Breakwater Studios’ documentary A Concerto is a Conversation, published on the New York Times website on November 24, 2020. The documentary was an Official Selection for the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
In his lengthy program notes for the work, Kris Bowers writes,
When I was first commissioned to write this Violin Concerto, I began speaking with Charles Yang about different ideas to explore. Both of us having moved to New York as teenagers to attend Juilliard, we reminisced about the feeling we had adjusting to a new and incredibly overwhelming environment, and how tough it can be as a young person to overcome fear, stress, self-doubt, etc. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a similar sense of excitement and being overwhelmed as I embarked on this commission. Growing up in Los Angeles, as a kid, having a concert work of mine performed on the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage seemed like something I could only dream about.
This space and this part of downtown L.A. has been an integral part of my young life. I started piano and theory lessons just across the street at the Colburn School the day they opened at that downtown location in 1998. I competed in the Spotlight Awards at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (as well as had my high school graduation there), and I performed here at Walt Disney Concert Hall with my high school jazz band. Being in these halls and on these stages made me incredibly excited about the possibilities for my future and my own potential as a musician. It helped me envision myself with a career doing this.
That being said, I was rarely in the audience for concerts in these spaces, and when I look back on my relationship with classical music, I always wish I had appreciated it more. On some level, I felt like I didn’t belong, and although I studied classical piano alongside jazz until graduating high school, it seemed like classical music just wasn’t “for me.” As a young black boy, I didn’t see myself in the audience members, the classical composers that were presented, or even in the other students I was in school with. Not seeing myself in these spaces helped me create an internal narrative that I didn’t belong.
Film music began to change that for me. It wasn’t until I developed a deep love and appreciation for the film scores of composers like John Williams, Danny Elfman, Quincy Jones, John Powell, Howard Shore, and Jerry Goldsmith that I began listening back to classical and orchestral music, and really seeing/hearing where they were coming from. All of a sudden, the music of Ravel, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Brahms, Steve Reich, and others came alive for me, and although this field wasn’t much more diverse, it was a profound inspiration to see how these composers combined their personal musical styles with their classical training. Not to mention that at times, great storytelling can transcend race and gender, and I still found inspiration in the heroes of the films I watched as a kid.
This being my first concert work for orchestra, the shape and sound of the piece began to unravel throughout the composition process. Having learned so much about storytelling as a film composer, I wanted to see if I could convey a narrative through the shape and pacing of this piece. Using Charles and his violin as the protagonist, I wondered if there was a way for me to follow the format of The Hero’s Journey while at the same time adhering to the rules and traditions of the violin concerto.
When we meet our hero at the beginning of the piece, he is somewhat melancholic and timid, and pretty soon we feel he is almost being pushed around by the orchestra. The orchestra represents life in this way, and can be both the bully and the mentor. So we go back and forth between these moments of chaos and anxiety, to these gentler sections that represent the pining for tranquility, nostalgia, love, etc.
The second movement is a moment for our protagonist to finally have that moment of peace and reflection. It’s in this movement that we hit our “Mid-Point,” and our hero finally takes control of the narrative. He is now driving the orchestra, flowing through with much more ease and acting from a place of love rather than fear.
Lastly, we reach the climactic final movement in which the hero and what he’s learned is put to the test, and the ease in which he exhibits his self-confidence and assuredness amidst the chaos is on full display.
On some level, writing this piece became a way to send a message to the younger version of myself, in terms of finding a way to maintain balance and inner peace in this chaotic and troubling world, and also as a way to encourage and celebrate my curiosity and love for so many types of music.