Review: La Jolla Symphony celebrates new music with American Indian composer Leon Joseph Littlebird

The past year in music has been good for Indigenous American composers. In 2022, Raven Chacon won the Pulitzer Prize in Music, a first for an American Indian, and last fall San Diego Opera premiered Gabriela Lena Frank’s “El último sueño de Frida y Diego.”

In March, Leilehua Lanzilotti and the Argus Quartet played works by Lanzilotti and Inti Figgis-Vizuela. Two weeks ago, the San Diego Symphony presented music by Chickasaw composer Jerod Tate at the Sycuan Casino. And on Saturday at UCSD’s Mandeville Auditorium, Leon Joseph Littlebird joined the La Jolla Symphony for the world premiere of his composition “When Echoes Speak,” which closed the first half of the program.

Unlike the composers above who could be labeled classical musicians, Littlebird crossed over from folk and country music. “When Echoes Speak” reflects this in its comfortable populism. It was fashioned as a vehicle for Littlebird’s flute playing and storytelling, with composer Max Wolpert as his collaborator.

The piece began with flutes, piccolo, and percussionists (playing an array of American Indian instruments) gently improvising over a drone in the low strings. Littlebird walked onstage from the wings playing a pentatonic melody on a bone whistle. This led into a four beat groove over which Littlebird declared, “Music is a force of nature that has always existed.” He spoke of the oldest instrument yet discovered, a bone flute found at a Neanderthal site. When a reconstruction was played, it sounded four notes of a pentatonic scale; the underlining music used only four notes.

Littlebird then poignantly played an end-blown flute. About halfway through the piece, the music oscillated between two simple chords. Riffs piled up one by one as the music crescendoed. This was less affecting than the previous sections; there simply wasn’t enough musical interest happening there besides the simple buildup.

When the climax finally came, the music spilled over into a grand, sweeping melody with full orchestration, which sounded like a routine Western film score for a majestic scene on Indian territory.

As an audience-friendly work, “When Echoes Speak” did its job. Littlejohn’s performance as flautist, percussionist, and narrator was compelling. Guest conductor Sameer Patel oversaw heartfelt playing from the orchestra.

Aaron Copland’s “Four Dance Episodes from ‘Rodeo’” was a populist counterbalance ending the second half of the program. It was given an enthusiastic performance that at times became unruly.

Maybe I haven’t attended the right concerts, but it seems to me that Copland’s appearances on orchestral concerts are limited to the “Fanfare for the Common Man,” “Quiet City,” and “Appalachian Spring.” Hearing “Rodeo” live was a happy reminder of Copland’s vitality and his ingenious orchestrations. Let this be a plea to program his other orchestral music.

Composer Anna Clyne enjoys many performances by American orchestras these days. She had two works on the concert bill. “Color Field” was inspired by Mark Rothko’s painting, “Orange, Red, Yellow,” but the sharply defined melodies and sections struck me as having little to do with Rothko’s washes of paint with their blurred, fuzzy edges. Patel and the symphony gave it a solid reading, but the music, which at times seemed like an accompaniment in search of a good melody, puzzled more than engaged me.

“Within Her Arms” was an elegy for strings written after Clyne’s mother passed away. The music at times seemed on the verge of falling apart — a metaphor for grief? Originally composed for 15 strings, Clyne sanctioned this arrangement for larger string orchestra. Unfortunately, attacks were hesitant and intonation was all over the place.

Hertzog is a freelance writer.