Mount Rushmore

Composer’s note:Mount Rushmore (2010) for chorus and orchestra is inspired by the monumental sculpture, located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, of four American presidents: George Washington (1732-1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). The American sculptor Gutzon Borglum supervised the carving of these figureheads into the granite mountainside of Mount Rushmore, from 1927 until his death in 1942. Created during the Great Depression (1927-1941) against seemingly impossible odds with a small crew of men, Mount Rushmore came to symbolise an attitude of hope against adversity.

Borglum described the monument as "American, drawn from American sources, memorialising American achievement". Drawing from American musical sources and texts, my composition echoes the resonance and dissonance of Mount Rushmore as a complex icon of American history. Like Mount Rushmore, my libretto is carved out of the words of each President. - Michael Daugherty -