Liberty Bell (2025) 10'

program note

I grew up in a small town north of Philadelphia. The image of the silent cracked Liberty Bell is emblazoned in my memory. The bell, which arrived to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, was originally called the State House bell, and was later renamed Liberty Bell in the 1830s by New York and Boston abolitionists. The bell has stood, throughout time, as a symbol for liberty. The journey of the bell is storied. In its youth it was carried off to Allentown, PA to prevent it from being melted down by the British for bullets. Later the bell was salvaged from a rotting steeple in the State House, which was rebuilt and later renamed Independence Hall sometime after the 1776 reading of the Declaration of Independence. In 1843, the bell cracked, and was never able to fully ring again. Yet still, up until 1915, the bell made seven trips across the US, carrying the message of its inscription throughout the country: “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.” (Leviticus XXV:10)

My Liberty Bell is not silent. The over 100 musicians on stage are raucous and loud. Battles between independent rhythmic lines form a jagged composite whole. Metal chimes and pitched bell plates are struck to resonate and ring out. Obtaining liberty is not a quiet tidy process. It is a messy, boisterous, ongoing, interlocking struggle. How can a piece of music embody and communicate the elusive reach for the most basic tenet of the founding of the country? The idea of liberty is everywhere – imprinted on coins, decorating postage stamps, declared in poetry and song, sprinkled through speeches. Music is my way of adding to the clamor. I shout out perseverance, grab tight to optimism, and search for a way forward. Taking the bell’s inscription literally, “unto all the inhabitants thereof”, the proclamation speaks to all who reach for the promise of liberty.

Julia Wolfe