Battle Maps of Wild Utah
for amplified chamber orchestra (Dogs of Desire):
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet in Bb and A, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Bassoon
French Horn in F, Trumpet in C, Trombone
Piano, Electric Bass (5 string), Drum Set
2 Sopranos
2 Violins, 1 Viola, 1 Cello
(Audio/video not publicly available at this time.)
Program Note
Utah is home to spectacular and distinctive landscapes: sinuous slot canyons; lonely buttes; mesas of pinyon-juniper forest; vast, colorful badlands; hoodoos; snow-capped peaks rising dramatically above sandstone pinnacles. But for decades, a battle has raged for the soul of Utah's wild places. It is a conflict between the material and the spiritual; between a get-rich-quick-now mentality and a philosophy of stewardship. One prevailing faction views the earth as made for man's domination, a “warehouse to be freely looted,” seeking to profit from it via coal mines, uranium mines, cattle grazing, oil wells, oil sands, oil shales, power plants, the expanding of off-road vehicle recreation, and other industries. The second, and diametrically opposed faction, consists of “those who see wild nature as precious in itself – beautiful, quiet, spiritually refreshing” and who recognize, as further elaborated upon by the great American writer Wallace Stegner, that “Wilderness, once we have given it up, is beyond our reconstruction.”
I fall squarely in the second camp. Battle Maps of Wild Utah is dedicated to the efforts of the Utah Wilderness Coalition and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, who for decades have been doing battle with special interests who would irreparably harm Utah's lands, and especially to the volunteers who have carried out the largest known land inventory ever conducted by a non-government organization to document millions of acres of Utah's magnificent lands that are worthy of protection as Wilderness. The text for Battle Maps of Wild Utah consists mainly of the names of wild and vulnerable places included in the inventory. It also pays homage to the cultural sites of Ancestral Puebloans nestled amongst the canyons and escarpments of the region, and the plants and animals – many of which are endangered or threatened – that call these wild places home. The Red Rocks Wilderness Act, a bill first introduced to Congress in 1989, would protect all of these special places, but it has been repeatedly stonewalled. My hope is that we can muster the collective will to defend these special places before their sublimity is lost.
Inspiring Documents:
Wilderness at the Edge: A Citizens' Proposal – Wallace Stegner
Citizens' Proposal for Utah Wilderness
www.suwa.org
Lyrics:
(Places)
Bottleneck Peak, Studhorse Peak, Mexican Mountain, Smelter Knolls East;
Sweet Alice, Bull Mountain, Ding Dang Dome;
Ragged Mountain, Warm Creek, Six Shooter Peak,
Butcher Knife Canyon, Wickiup.
Wahweap, Coyote Flat,
Rattlesnake Bench, Hell's Half Acre, Paradise Canyon,
Angel Point, Island in the Sky;
Little Horse Heaven, Bridger Jack Mesa,
Lone Cedar Flat, Kaiparowits.
Dirty Devil River, Buckacre Point, Hideout, Bear's Ears,
Fiddler Butte, San Juan River, Cottonwood Spring,
Parunuweap, Virgin River, Ibapah Peak,
Fremont River, Metate Arch,
Green River, Battleship Rock, White River.
Carcass Canyon. Labyrinth Canyon.
Desolation Canyon.
Drowned Hole, Mussentuchit Badlands.
Black Dragon Wash, Red Desert.
Slaughter Slopes, Dead Man Point, Bitter Seep.
Valley of the Gods,
Ancient Art, Golden Stairs,
Hand of Puttima.
Tables of the Sun, Dreamspeaker Spire.
Crystal Peak, Copper Point.
San Rafael Swell.
(Plants)
Lily, Columbine, Primrose, Piñon, Paintbrush, Prickly-pear, Yucca, Saltbrush, Blazingstar, Buttercup*, Juniper, Milkvetch*, Poppy, Draba, Blackbrush, Stoneseed, Buckwheat, Biscuitroot, Purple Sage, Yarrow, Paradox Moonwort, Cryptanth, Globemallow, Parriette Cactus*, Iris, Lupine, Cataract Gilia, Cliffrose, Phlox, Alcove Bog Orchid*, Brickellbrush, Kodachrome Bladderpod*.
(Artifacts of the Ancestral Puebloan peoples)
Green mask panel; Big Man pictograph; River House.
(Names for the Ancestral Puebloan Peoples)
Hisatsinom (ee-sah-tse-nom, Hopi language)
Basketmaker
Se'da (Tewa Language)
Ancient Pueblo
Endangered Animals
Agassiz's Desert Tortoise
Lahontan Trout
Willow Flycatcher
Coral Pink Sand Dunes Tiger Beetle
Virgin River Chub
Greenback Cutthraot Trout
Black-footed Ferret
Utah Prairie Dog
Kanab Ambersnail