How Grammy-Nominated Composer Peter Boyer Is Scoring America’s History

Grammy-nominated composer Peter Boyer joins Vonn Vanier on Beyond the Notes to share the story of his two most ambitious new works: 

• "American Mosaic", commissioned by the Kennedy Center for America’s 250th anniversary, blending Boyer’s music with the imagery of Americana photographer Joe Sohm. 
• "A Hundred Years On" is an equal collaboration between Peter Boyer and librettist Mark Campbell for the Mann Center and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It's an oratorio that explores the legacy of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. 

Boyer opens up about the responsibility of writing “American-themed” music, the influence of Copland, Bernstein, and John Williams on his voice, and the challenge of balancing two monumental commissions at once.

Transcript

Vonn Vanier
Knock knock.

It's America

They asked composer Peter Boyer to write the score for the nation's 250th anniversary.

His reaction?

"It's a combination of excitement and enthusiasm and anticipation and also a certain amount of trepidation."

Boyer is a composer recognized for writing music that speaks to America’s defining occasions. Music that's grand, sweeping, and often called patriotic.

"I never used that adjective. I like the term American themed. Patriotic can very easily move into sort of jingoistic." 

It's a line he's walked his entire career. From his Grammy nominated Ellis Island
to two monumental new commissions, Peter Boyer has become an artist whose music helps give voice to historic moments.

I'm Vonn Vanier and this is Beyond the Notes.

Vonn Vanier
So tell me, first of all, when you get a call asking for a commission by the Kennedy Center to write a special piece about the 250th anniversary of the United States to be performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, what goes through your mind at that moment? What do you think?

Peter Boyer
Well, obviously, it's a combination of excitement and enthusiasm and anticipation and also a certain amount of trepidation that the work actually has to be done. It has to be done at a level that is going to satisfy the terms of the commission. So in this case, this project called "American Mosaic".

It's very interesting in several ways compared to other projects of mine. It's a project that I did not actually originate the idea for. So the idea came from my visual collaborator, a man named Joe Sohm, who is probably, well, easily one of the most published Americana photographers alive, if not the most. 

His images have been published hundreds of thousands or millions of times. It's really quite a remarkable thing. And actually, Joe Sohm came to me a little over two years ago in the summer of 2023. And he was already looking ahead to the big America250 moment, to the 250th anniversary of the United States. And he had this very grand idea for a piece for narrator and orchestra with his images. 

And I should say that I had already accepted another very big commission from the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia for an oratorio that I knew was also gonna be happening in the summer of 2026. So I was hesitant to accept what seemed to me a very exciting additional project, but I felt that it was really gonna, sort of, meet the moment very carefully, in a very precise kind of way that I thought would work well. 

So part of what made this project so interesting is that Joe's idea was, rather than completely write this new piece, which we ended up calling "American Mosaic" from scratch, why don't we do, and he called it, this was his term, which I think is kind of funny, make it "Peter Boyer's Greatest Hits", and let's take chunks from multiple existing works of yours, but repurpose them, and let me, Joe, build my images, edit my images to these preexisting pieces so that we can have this process of creating chunk sections that are gonna help us build a big piece.

Vonn Vanier
Yeah.

Peter Boyer
And then of course, write some new music and adapt and connect and weave together these preexisting materials. So that actually was a fantastic idea and it made it more possible for me to do this project while simultaneously writing a completely new huge piece for the Mann Center for Philadelphia, which is like a 45 minute work for a large orchestra and chorus and soloists. Otherwise, I don't know if I could have actually had enough hours to do both of these things. 

So it was interesting in that to go specifically to your question, that I had a preexisting relationship with the Kennedy Center and with the National Symphony Orchestra because they had commissioned from me a pretty big piece, not quite this big, but a pretty big piece, an 18-and-a-half minute piece called "Balance of Power" that they commissioned in 2019 and it was ultimately premiered in 2021. 

So I had a preexisting relationship and I could bring the idea to them and then of course, wait for an answer and then wait for the actual result, which was, okay, yes, we would like to commission this. We would like to be the lead commissioner. We'd like to do the world premiere, but we also like the idea of a consortium of orchestras. 

And so then there's another whole aspect to it, which is in addition to the writing of the piece and the adaptation is to actually do the legwork of connecting with multiple orchestras in a sense kind of promoting and selling the project and saying, okay, the Kennedy Center, the National Symphony Orchestra is the lead, but we believe this is a project, Joe and I believe it's a project that is going to meet the moment of USA 250, fraught as that moment may be with all the things going on in our country. 

And a number of other orchestras have signed on. So as we speak today, the others that have actually publicly announced include Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Symphony for the Cincinnati Pops where Martin Sheen is going to narrate, which is an absolute thrill. 

That'll be three weeks after the premiere in Washington. And John Morris Russell will conduct Pacific Symphony, which will be the West Coast premiere in late May, 2026 with Alexander Shelley, who will conduct the new music director there.

And the Williamsburg Symphony in Virginia, which of course is in a very historic location. And Michael Buttermann will conduct there. Those are the ones that have been announced thus far.

But I will say that there are others that have signed on that haven't yet announced. So the project is already pretty big and it's going to get bigger. 

Yeah, going back to my original answer, it's a combination of excitement and there's always trepidation because one has to actually do the work. And in this case, it's going to be very high profile. And so you've got to do something in a way that will meet the moment successfully. And hopefully we will.

Vonn Vanier
I can only really imagine with a project like this where, you really have to have a strong sense of passion and to have a really strong vision going into it. what's the first thing you do when you start on a project like this where, you've already got some material but you have to create more. I mean, do you start with a sort of vision of what the whole piece is going to be like or what's that like for you?

Peter Boyer
So again, in this case, this particular project, "American Mosaic", is unique in the sense of my collaboration with Joe Sohm, visual collaborator. 

So it's different from all the processes that I've had before. And also the other piece that I've alluded to, the Philadelphia piece for the Mann Center, also is, in my personal experience, a unique collaboration because there's a librettist. 

But so in this case, Joe Sohm and I knew, this is a piece that's, first of all, we had to actually get the commission. And once we add the commission, know, the commission is of a certain length. 

The commission, we agree that the National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center, and I and Joe, we agreed that it would be a 27 to 30-minute commission. That's what the actual agreement says. The piece itself, it appears, is going to come in at about 32 minutes and 30 seconds. So they're getting a little extra, and that's okay. So, you know, once there's a length determined,

Now in this case, there's text and then there's so much imagery. I mean, I can't say enough about Joe Sohm's amazing imagery. I will just say that because he actually originated this idea for this project, this has been a passion project for him for years. 

So he's gone around the country, entire country, all 50 states for the second time in his life, capturing in this case, not still images, which he did for decades. He has thousands and thousands of amazing still images, but actually capturing high-def video. 

So he's captured cityscapes of literally every major city in the United States of America, every major national park, so much gorgeous imagery. It's sort of national geographic type imagery. 

So then, how do we turn this into a piece and what do we do in terms of text? So this was his idea that the piece would be based on quotes from throughout American history. It's not a history of the United States. That would be, I think, a little boring. But it's something that takes its inspiration from particular quotes. 

So it was Joe's idea that we would have Benjamin Franklin as our bookends because he found these two fantastic Benjamin Franklin quotes. And one of those quotes that Benjamin Franklin said shortly before he died was that he looked forward to an America two or three centuries hence. 

And he said, I almost wish it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. This was in a letter. And it's a perfect quote to launch us into this piece. 

And then another quote from a different time in Benjamin Franklin's life that he said near the end of his life, "I must now quit the scene, but you may live to see your country flourish". 

So we found these kinds of quotes and there's, you know, there's an Abraham Lincoln quote and there's JFK quote and FDR quote and there's an Eleanor Roosevelt quote, not everybody's a president, there's John Muir. 

So we did a lot of searching for quotes and then it's not just a quote, we don't have the narrator just say the quote, but we have to have a little context. 

So Joe wrote a first draft of the script and we ultimately decided on 11 sections. So each section is roughly three minutes long so that there's a little beginning, middle and end for each section, there's a quote and the narrator doesn't speak constantly, but rather, says this thing, gives us something to ponder, and then the images and the music the orchestra can take over. 

So again, because this was going to be largely preexisting, Joe said, let me have your CDs. He's still planning, let me rip the CDs. Let me have everything. Let me have all your recordings, which I gave him, and let me learn it all and then ponder and see what we can come up with. So he did a lot of work at first just going through all of my stuff.

All the recordings with the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, and finding things that he responded to visually. And then he sort of did a big, long first draft while I was working on the Philadelphia piece. And then from that big, long first draft, he said, okay, well, first of all, this is too long and we have to cut some things. And then, you know, so that's how the process has unfolded. Then I took the script first draft and I said, you know, Joe, let me now rewrite it in my own way.

And so the script, it's not quite done, but we're close, is basically, you know, the way that the credits for this thing read are music by Peter Boyer, imagery and editing by Joe Sohm's script by Joe Sohm and Peter Boyer. So it's a real collaboration in that sense. 

And then, you know, we create a demo with a demo vocal track, a sort of scratch track, just to see what works. Get a narrator and hire that narrator to read all this and then line it up in Pro Tools against the tracks and see what's going to work. 

And then I have to figure out, you know, the adaptation. So what's new upfront? What's new in these interstitial moments? How do I adapt the preexisting material? But I have to say it's, I mean, it's easier than starting completely from scratch and having to write a 32 minute piece utterly from scratch. 

And my worry as I went through this a few months ago was, okay, will the piece cohere when it comes from so many different sources? 

And I wasn't sure until I really started to put it together and make this very elaborate demo and then give that to Joe to make, to put a draft of the video. And it does work. 

And I guess the reason that it does work is because it's all come from the same person. And so in terms of a, if you will, a voice or a style, although there are different things represented, it all comes from me. And so it seems to work well. 

And also because the piece is built around these quotes, it's okay that it's episodic. It makes sense that it's episodic. It's also visually episodic, but we have certain things that will tie it together. So it's a very interesting process and different from anything I've done. And with all of the people involved, the conductors, the orchestra, the artistic administrator folks, of course, I've been very clear, this is a piece that's going to involve a lot of preexisting material. I want to make sure everybody knows it so nobody's surprised. 

But as you can hear, even with that, caveat, it's still a lot of work. It's still a lot of work to put it together and make it a piece that will really work. But for, you know, whoever the people may be that actually know my music, those people will have certain, I think, aha moments where they ah, I recognize this from this other piece, but it's been repurposed. So that's what this process has been like.

Vonn Vanier
I'm curious to know how that compares to your work, "A Hundred Years On", which is your other commission, in terms of the process and especially just sort of the philosophy and the approach behind how you're working on that.

Peter Boyer
Right, so they are quite different projects and it's very interesting that they are both simultaneous. They have to both kind of move along on parallel paths because the process is very different. So a hundred years on, which will premiere in June of 2026 at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, which commissioned it for its 50th anniversary with even bigger forces. 

So the Philadelphia Orchestra plus the Crossing Choir, wonderful chamber choir from Philadelphia, plus five vocal soloists who have all been hired, but they haven't been announced, so I can't say who they are, but they're fantastic.

And there will be a, even though it's an oratorio, for lack of a better term, it's not staged, it'll be semi-staged. So there actually is a stage director who's been hired, also who has not yet been announced, a very, very accomplished, multi-decade career person from the opera world, which is very exciting for me. 

And there'll be a projection designer, a lighting designer. So a full sort of theatrical approach to it. But the most important thing in terms of the process is that this is the first time for me that I've had a librettist hired to write a libretto for me to set to music. 

So, you know, most of my repertoire has been orchestral, some things with chorus, some things with spoken word like "Ellis Island", of course. But I've never written a work like this. 

And so to sort of back up because this is been such an interesting process. When the Mann Center for the Performing Arts called me, like your first question, this was a call, it was actually a phone call, completely out of the blue from Cathy Cahill, the president and CEO of the Mann Center. It was in the summer of 2022, hadn't talked to her for a long time. And I just got a call and she very excitedly started saying, we're gonna have this amazing thing and it's gonna be, know, almost four years from now as far as 50th anniversary. We have this great idea. And she was very excited about it. And she said, we want you to write it. Will you write it? 

I mean, it was just like.

Whoa, okay.

So as we started to have discussions, the first thing that was said, you know, in the very early discussions about what will this be? What will this piece be? The Mann Center, she and the, you know, the artistic folks, the planning folks there, they really love "Ellis Island: The Dream of America". And they said, you know, we would like something like "Ellis Island", but about the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. 

That's the subject matter, which was in Philadelphia, which is a kind of forgotten thing in American history by many people. I mean, I had only vaguely heard of it, but it was an incredibly huge part of our history in 1876 for the country's centennial. Thus the title "A Hundred Years On". And it took place in Philadelphia and it was the first World's Fair in America. And it was a completely stunning event in our history, you know, only a little more than a decade after the end of the Civil War. 

And so the first thought was, okay, well, will this be a piece that is spoken word in orchestra? Because that's what "Ellis Island" is, it's spoken. Anyway, as the discussions went on, it became clear, no, I think this should be a sung piece, this should be sung. Well, I'm not going to write the text. So who are we going to get to write the text? It's going to really be a libretto. And the name that came up was Mark Campbell immediately. 

Mark Campbell is certainly one of the two or three most distinguished American librettists. And he's written the librettos for, or libretti if you want to be Italian, for 30 or so operas. He's collaborated with around 30 composers. Works that he's written librettos for have won the Pulitzer Prize, "Silent Night" with Kevin Puts, for which he wrote the libretto, the Grammy, "The Revolution of Steve Jobs" with Mason Bates, that was just done at the San Francisco Opera not long ago. On and on, very impressive credentials. 

And I'd never met him and he'd never met me, but I certainly heard of him. And so they reached out to Mark Campbell and he said he'd love to do it. So great, you know so I don't have to worry about the writing. He's going to do all the research because I was very busy with other commissions and he's going to do all the research. He will write a libretto. 

And what is so great about Mark is that he is able to create historically plausible characters. So these are characters that were not actual real people, but they are informed by the history. And he's also very gifted at being able to do that in a way that says something to us today about what's happening. He's just very gifted in that sense. 

So it was all his writing in terms of, okay he said, I think we should have five characters. We should have two sopranos and a mezzo soprano and a tenor and a baritone. And each one will have a solo number and they'll have a quintet and lots of chorus.

This was even before we hired The Crossing. just know, okay, chorus, lots of chorus, and of course orchestra. And I knew it would be the Philadelphia Orchestra. okay, that's going to be great. But so all of this is to say that my task now is very different from the other project because my task is I've got a 27-page libretto that Mark wrote, that he wrote quite a while ago. He wrote it within several months. He was very quick about it. 

And I couldn't even really focus on it for quite a while because I had two or three other commissions in front of it. But you know, once I could really focus on it, okay, now my job is to set all of this wonderful text for music. 

And I've got five solos, and each solo has a story. And each one is going to be for a fantastic soloist even though they haven't been hired yet. And I've got to do this, I've got to do these five songs and then there's a quintet. And there's all this choral material. And because it's about this, this exhibition, this amazing centennial exhibition, a lot of the libretto. 

It sounds funny, but there are lists that the singers, the choir is singing all these amazing things that they're seeing at the exhibition. And so I've got these lists of things. so, you know, how do I set these lists in a way that is organic and that is natural and that is exciting? And they're very, it's not in a traditional sort of poetic meter. So they're uneven line lengths all over the place. But how do I do this in such a way that, how does this inform the music?

So my process, you know, I've worked on it for many months at this point is, okay, I've got to get a piano vocal score. I've got to get something that's got all the five soloists music, all the choral music, and then the music for the orchestra just in a piano form. And I've got to finish that and deliver it. And then I've got to orchestrate it. So as we sit here and talk today, I've composed 38 minutes out of what will be about 46 minutes. I've got eight minutes left to compose.

And then I have to edit proper piano parts and deliver a piano vocal score. And then I've got to go back to "American Mosaic" and finish that. And then I've got to come back to this and orchestrate it. And I think it'll take me probably two months to orchestrate it. 

So again, I've never done a project like this. The orchestration will come last. I think it will take about two months. But the singers, the choir and singers have to get their music. And so I've got to do this first. it's, I've written about 960 bars so far. It's a lot of bars. And I suspect that when all is said and it will be 1,150, 1,200 bars, something like that. So it will actually end up being the longest piece that I've done. "Ellis Island" is 1,049 bars.

This will be even a little bit longer than that. Anyway, that's a very long answer to your question, but it's a fascinating process. So that's what my days are like these days.

Vonn Vanier
So what does it feel like to when you have these huge projects and you know, "A Hundred Years On" isn't exactly about, you know, the full scale of American history, but it feels very American anyway. And when you have these, you know, huge projects that celebrate the United States, what does it feel like to write music for America?

Peter Boyer
Well, yeah, if one feels a certain responsibility, I suppose. But I have to say that, I wouldn't have these projects if the commissioners didn't want me and my music to represent these projects, right? So, I mean, it's not as if it was some sort of a blind audition. I mean, people who've commissioned me know my music. 

So I can feel comfortable enough knowing that the music that I write, the way in which the music emerges from me, the notes that I settle on eventually, if they satisfy me as a creator, they're probably going to satisfy the audience. They're probably gonna satisfy the commissioners. 

I mean, maybe that sounds a little vague, but I don't have to try, per se, to write a certain kind of music. It happens sort of organically. And I think it happens organically simply because of all of the music that I love; that I have listened to and that I have studied for decades. And so it kind of, it flows in somehow, it flows in. 

You know, any composer is influenced by many, composers. But for me, you know, it's no secret that I think the three biggies for me, the three most profound influences on my music are Aaron Copeland and Leonard Bernstein and John Williams.

One can't get much higher than that in terms of aspirations as an American composer. But all of the music, those bodies of music, and of course John Williams is happily still with us and still amazingly producing new works into his 90s, and Copland and Bernstein have both been gone for a long time. But the body of repertoire that they left us is a body of repertoire that speaks to me very, very profoundly and very personally. And I've spent a lot of time since I was in college studying and loving this repertoire. 

And so it's very important to say I'm never out to imitate. I'm never just going to try to imitate. I mean, think that would be, it would be a mistake. But whatever my voice, the notes that I settle on and say, okay, I like these notes versus those notes, they're informed by all of this music. And so, so to answer your question, you know, it's because, okay, this is my voice as a composer and, and these, these very prestigious organizations that have decided "Okay, we want him to write these pieces for us." 

They've placed a certain amount of faith in me based on what I've done. And I don't have to try to reinvent the wheel with myself to do these things. Now that being said, it's still not easy. And, you know, setting this text, setting Mark Campbell's text, I might work on a three minute number for two weeks, two and a half weeks, a three minute number. I mean, it's not fast, it's not easy because I'm constantly revising and revising until I reach a point where I feel like, okay, that's it. 

Like it really works, everything works. And I don't stop, generally, unless I'm out of time, I don't stop until I say, "I can't make this any better." When I say, "I can't make it any better". I stop. And then move on to the next section. 

And when the pieces are so big, one has to just focus on a section at a time, write a section at time. I've got a big list, I've got to write all these things. And when one number is done, I check it off, okay.

That one's done. And I don't go in order at all. often do the end early on. But you know, so I've got my big list and I've got, okay, we've got, you know, let's say I've got 18 sections, one at a time, I'm going to write these sections and okay, so I've got 14 sections done and I have four to go and you know, just hit it until you get there. So that's kind of a long answer to your question, but that's the process.

Vonn Vanier
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm still amazed at how to, you you can handle taking on these 45 minute projects multiple at a time. So, you know, when you see it finally on stage in a full production, like what's the feeling there for you after having done all this and especially just considering the subject matter of the music in the very kind of patriotic nature of it. 

What's your feeling and just seeing the audience in front of you watching as well.

Peter Boyer
Well, so for these two projects, of course, I can't answer yet, so we can check in next February at the Kennedy Center and next June at the Mann Center for this. 

But certainly I can tell you based on past experiences. I mean, the nature of the beast is that there's an unbelievable amount of work that goes into it before it gets delivered, right? And then there's a certain waiting period before you actually get to the first rehearsal. So, there is a certain, there's, again both excitement and a kind of trepidation before the first rehearsal. 

Making sure, you know, I mean, all the things that composers deal with, that there's scores that have been proofread, there are parts that have been extracted and formatted and printed, and those have been proofread. And one is hoping that, you know, no matter how hard one has worked at it, that there are no mistakes, that there's no stupid thing that has happened somewhere, that everything is gonna go smoothly. So it's when that first rehearsal happens, there is a certain, inevitably a certain sense of anxiety.

Because, okay, I'm hearing it along the way very realistically through software and through the demos, but it's not the real thing until you really have it done by a great orchestra. And so generally it's both tremendously exciting and also trepidation until they've played it once through. And when they've played it once through and okay, there's no stupid mistakes somewhere or whatever, it's gonna be fine. Then it's great because then it's like all of that work has been accomplished. It's been delivered. 

We are at this place and now there's just the rehearsal process of, know, but that's that's fun. That's easy. Relatively speaking, it's easy compared to all the work that went into it. 

And also, you know, I mean, you use the word patriotic and I, know, that's that's a kind of it's a complicated word. And I personally people have described my music with that adjective and I never use that adjective. I like the term "American themed". I think, OK, I write American themed music, not all of my pieces, but I've been often asked to write American themed music. And, you know, especially where we are today in our country with the immense problems that are confronting us, you know, on a daily basis, I think patriotic can very easily move into sort of jingoistic, something that is less attractive. You know, so I'll let others decide that, but okay, American themed. 

I get asked to do American themed projects. And I do feel a certain sense of responsibility. 

Okay, I'm an American composer. mean, okay, all of us who live in this country and work, we're American composers. But, you know, when one is asked to do something on this scale, and one is being asked to, to celebrate our country with all of its flaws and all of its problems, but still the country, you know, in which I was born and raised and have grown up, you know, I feel a certain sense of responsibility. Like my job is to do this in a way that I hope is going to be appropriate and is going to uplift. 

I mean, one of the great things about being a composer, and certainly one of the great things about having pieces like this commissioned is you have an opportunity, I have an opportunity to uplift people in front of me. People who will come and see this thing, pay money, sit down, and get an experience of something that I've worked for months or even years to create. I have an opportunity through this incredible vessel of the orchestra and of the conductor and of the choir, the video, you know, to connect with people in a way that can give them an experience that they won't be able to have anywhere else. 

And certainly I can tell you, I mean, through many of my pieces, but especially through "Ellis Island: The Dream of America", that's had so many performances by so many orchestras in so many places. I know that I've been able to actually touch people and give them emotional and meaningful and uplifting experiences. So, you know, what's better than that? That's the greatest thing. That's the best thing. So that is the ultimate sort of gratification at the end of a process that can be very long and very tiring and very arduous. That's a payoff for me.

Vonn Vanier
Well, Peter, thank you so much for speaking with me today. For me as a composer, you're really inspiring and the work you do and the wisdom you've shared is really amazing for me to hear and to learn from. So thank you so much for being on the show today.

Peter Boyer
Thank you.

Thank you, Vonn and best of luck to you in all things.