SOUND ADVICE
Brent Michael Davids composes a varied life
By Melissa Crytzer Fry

Composer Brent Michael Davids '92 M.M. doesn't want to be heard. "To be really good, you're sort of not noticed, says Davids about the nuances of film scoring. Bad music will stick out, but if your music is really good, people will watch the movie and won't even notice it."

Composing music for more than 30 years, ever since he was a junior in high school and earning his first paid commission with Diane Ragains of the Chicago Lyric Opera at 18, Davids writes from his head - generally no musical instruments involved - jotting dozens of compositions to paper each year for film, television, chorus, orchestra, ensembles, string quartets and even fund-raising projects. he's looking forward to scoring a film called "The Will Sampson Story," about the actor who played the role of Chief Bromden, the silent American Indian in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." The film, which Davids will record in George Lucas's Skywalker studio, is rumored to have attracted interest from Hollywood heavyweights who worked with Sampson before his death -possibly the likes of Paul Newman, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Jack Nicholson.

"I like writing to the story - and music that has a story to it," says Davids, who, at age 47, has 38 years of musical experience under his belt. "Music that involves stories, is a story or goes with a story seems to have more meaning. It's richer and deeper, and more people can relate to it."

Although he has only been involved in the film industry for six years, and admits that film composing is competitive and more demanding than his experience as a concert composer, it is here that his passion lies.

"In film, you might be required to do all sorts of things - choral music and orchestra music," he explains. "But you're also dealing with the story, which means it might start with music for a party scene, then switch immediately to a scene that requires jazz, hip-hop, blues or horror music - all in the same film."

The ability to seamlessly shift gears - whether in a film setting or in life - is a skill Davids perfected as music composition graduate student at ASU. During the last year of his degree program, he was approached by the Joffrey Ballet to write a piece that required him to be in New York. Determined to earn his degree, Davids shifted from student to composer, making advance arrangements to double-=up on his coursework and complete his studies ahead of schedule.

While on campus, he spent countless hours in ASU's chemistry lab - intent on building a quartz crystal flute with chemistry professor Michael Wheeler. "We fashioned flutes out of Pyrex and then made a quartz flute," says Davids, indicating that their final creation, a bass crystal flute, is twice as large as any crystal flute located in the Library of Congress.

If that project weren't time-consuming enough, DAvids devoted his remaining free time in Tempe to developing a recording studio for ASU dancers to create scores for their performances. Working with dance professor Robert Kaplan, he designed a two-workstation system with mixing consoles and speakers. He also taught the dance students basic recording techniques.

"I wired everything and designed ways the equipment worked together, continuing, also, to make recordings that faculty and students requested for their dance performances," says Davids.

Davids believes these experiences, along with his classical music training at Northern Illinois University, where he received his bachelor's degree, and the diversity of his composition expe4riences make him a good fit for the range and depth of skills required in film scoring.

"The satisfaction I get from film composing is the scoring par," explains Davids," even though, in some ways, it has a lesser reputation than high art or concert music."

His appreciation for music extends beyond music labels, though - something Davids attributes to his family upbringing.

"My mom was a choral director and played piano and violin," he says. "And my sisters both played piano and sand. Music was always around me. In fact, we were forced to take piano lessons, which,a t the time, I didn't like."

Davids chose to play brass instruments (trombone and bass trombone) and percussion growing up, but today he admits that piano helped hone his composing skills. "If I had learned to pick up the piano or guitar only by ear, I might have never learned how to read or write music, and then my career might be totally different," he says.

Fortunately, the piano lessons tuck, helping build Davids's reputation as one of the nation's most accomplished composers, and one of only a handful of American Indian composers.

In November 2004, he was commissioned to write a work celebrating the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Called "We the People," the piece was composed for full orchestra (triple winds) and a 200-voice chorus for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The choral accolade tells the story of America's Indians, celebrating their more than 500 unique tribal names, sung back-to-back for 30 minutes with no repeats.

Davids was recognized last year for his unique marriage of European classical music techniques and Native American musical traditions by the National Endowment for the ARts in its "American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius" program. His music was celebrated nationwide in events, and he was listed in a guide to the initiative that placed his works alongside that of giants in American choral music history such as Samuel Barber, Robert Shaw and Stephen Foster.

Davids's list of commissions is exhaustive, but he is selective about which assignments he accepts. Many of his works are story-rich compositions that reflect his own heritage a s Stockbridge, Wisc., Mohican.

Among the pieces he has written are a four-tuba, 40-voice chorus tribute to the ceremonial rituals of Indian tribes in Madison, Wisc., composed for the Madison Festival Chorus; a two-movement orchestra work featuring English horn, "Prayer and Celebration," created for a performance of the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion"; a trumpet concerto about the Oneida tribe, written for Grammy-winning trumpeter Christopher Moore; and a film score for the silent, black-and-white 1920s film, "The Last of the Mohicans."

"The Mohican film is a pet project of mine," says Davids of the score, which connects his growing film passion with his classical training. "I scored it for full orchestra and for American Indian flute and percussion. And I even sing on it. I wrote it with the idea that a live orchestra and musicians can perform the entire score non-stop as the film plays."

Davids agrees that the approach is unusual, and looked forward to the score's first performance on April 18 at the historic Landmark Theater in Syracuse, N.Y. The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra was set to record the score at the Landmark a week after the performance so that a DVD containing the movie with its new score could be released by the Oneida Nation's Four Directions Entertainment company.

The fact that the movie is being re-released by a Native American tribe, with a score produced by a Native American, was pleasing to Davids.

"The original story wasn't very Mohican," he said. "This (score) was a way for me to take the movie back and Mohicanize it."

Another Indian-themed project close to DAvids' heart is a short film he recently finished scoring, related to American Indian tobacco use and how the tobacco industry has corrupted indigenous uses of the plant. Serious about authenticity, DAvids believes that Indian composers and musicians should be the first artists considered for films about American Indians.

"Indian composers bring the nuance of what's happening in the film to the music," he explains. native Americans, he says, will invariably interpret a film's scenes differently than non-natives. "For instance, in a scene where a character is crying, a non-Native might see that as a sad moment and include heartbreaking music, but a Native might see part the heartbreak and see something empowering." The music composed, adds Davids, would be dramatically different, and accurately reflects the Native American heritage and experience.

Davids also reaches out to other professions in the film industry, helping them understand his take on film composing through a workshop that aims to teach the basics of film scoring to directors, editors and producers.

Although his plate is always full, Davids has made time for additional projects that speak to his convictions and experiences, including a piece he wrote for the Miró String Quartet called the "Tinnitus Quartet." The composition takes listeners inside the head of sufferers of the ear condition, tinnitus, an affliction that plagues Davids himself.

"I hear tones really loudly at the time,": explains Davids. "And ringing. It's irritating, especially as a composer, to have this affliction. But I have learned to tune it out to a degree. The 'Tinnitus Quartet' allows listeners to experience what having tinnitus is like - featuring a tone going all the way through the performance non-stop - being passed from the different players in the string quartet."

Perhaps one of Davids's greatest convictions is the importance of his role as a mentor. "I want to let Indians know that we can do all types of music," says Davids. He hopes to be a trailblazer for other American Indians considering classical training and composing careers. In 2005 he was a co-founder of the First Nations Composer Initiative, which supports Indian composers, and was the organization's first artistic advisor.

He's also composing a radio opera, "The Trail of Standing Bear," which will be the first American Indian opera in history. The long-term project, designed to make opera more accessible to American Indians, tells the story of Ponca medicine man Standing Bear, who won the first Indian lawsuit against the U.S. government, citing a violation of civil rights. The full-score, full-orchestra opera will reach beyond Indian audiences, transcending categories of social status and wealth, when it is replayed over national radio.

"I really write for everyone," says Davids.

As an up-and-coming film composer, his audience may grow exponentially, matching the millions of U.S. theatergoers drawn to the silver screen each year. But in this new-found passion, he's likely not to be hear - a dream come true for this aspiring film composer who values the silent nature of good music.

-- Melissa Crytzer Fry is a Phoenix-based freelance writer.