“First They Came…”, for vocal quartet (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone) and string trio, was written for the 2018 Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.  I had chosen this iconic poem due to my reaction of the current political state in this country.  In 2017 I was living in England at the time, and I was horrified to learn about the Executive Order 13769, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”, often referred to as the “Muslim ban” or the “travel ban,” signed by President Donald Trump on 27 January, 2017.  Although this law was revised to a “watered down, politically correct version” from its predecessor, the symbolism in this poem between Nazi Germany and Trump’s America is quite alarming and “speculatively” prophetic.  Clearly the ugly insidious mask of fasicm is subtly creeping up into America’s homeland: anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, sexism, and of course, the hatred towards those of the Islamic faith is on the rise, and in some instances, an acceptable form of scapegoat behavior in the United States.  When completing this work, by sheer “coincidence” I happen to stumble upon “The Handmaid’s Tale” TV series on Hulu, which is currently based on Margaret Attwood’s 1985 dystopian model.  The main protagonist and narrator, Offred the Handmaid, makes the following observation when reflecting of her “old life” as “June” before the great fall of America’s society to the “Republic of Gilead,” which caught my eye upon creating this piece based on Niemöller’s text:

“Now I’m awake to the world.  I was asleep before. That’s how we let it happen.  When they slaughtered Congress, we didn’t wake up.  When they blamed terrorists and suspended the constitution, we didn’t wake up then, either. Nothing changes instantaneously.  In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” 

Offred’s repeated theme of “not waking up” is strikingly similar to Niemöller’s repeated stance on “not speaking out”, and the gradual “heating bathtub” could also resemble the slow purging of the collective groups from his poem.  Although Attwood’s vision of a totalitarian theonomic military dictatorship is not so quite far off from the Trump presidency, there are symptoms in our current political climate that are parallel to the Republic of Gilead.  It is my hope that my musical approach to Niemöller written in 2018 is a cautionary tale, rather than being a prologue for what could transpire if we are not careful.  Moreover, I will close this commentary of my musical rendition to Martin Niemoller’s “First they Came…” by stating a very special historical quote as a dire warning: “'Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.'  (George Santayana)
                                                                                                                        -Brian Mark

Soprano: Caroline Jamsa
Alto: Sarah Brauer
Tenor: Jens Ibsen
Baritone: Alex Goodhart
Bryce C. Caster: Violin
Celka Ilona Ojakangas: Viola
Ramsey Sadaka: Violoncello
Dawn Sonntag, Conductor

“First they Came…”

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

-Text, Martin Niemöller

"First they Came..."

New York City based composer, pianist and video artist Brian Mark has been hailed as an "attractive and intelligible" artist (Boston Musical Intelligencer), whose work is "compelling" (London Jazz News), and "preserves the vibrancy and relevance of contemporary art music" (New York Examiner). The American Composers Forum esteemed Brian as an "intelligent, modern composer who employs many media elements and does so with marked idiosyncrasy and depth”, and his concert programming has recently been described as “a fluid approach to presenting new music in fresh contexts and juxtapositions” (The New Yorker).

Brian’s music have been performed by many notable ensembles, such as the BBC Singers, Psappha Ensemble, Chelsea Symphony, Ensemble Signal, Atlas Ensemble, MikroEnsemble, Brave New Works, Choral Chameleon, both the Ligeti and Esterhazy String Quartets, Juventas Ensemble, Dither Quartet, members of the London Symphony Orchestra, among many others. His works have been presented around the world in festivals such as Bang on a Can, MATA, Oregon Bach Festival, London Contemporary Music Festival, Atlas Festival, Spitalfields Music Festival, i=u, June in Buffalo, Tutti Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the highSCORE Festival.

Brian has recently been awarded a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council.  He has also received multiple awards and grants from the Jerome Composers Commissioning Program/Jerome Fund, New Music USA, the Grammy Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, ASCAP and SCI, New London Singers, Ross McKee Foundation, Florence Gould Michael Iovenko Memorial Fellowship, the BMI Henry Warren Film Scoring Award, and was very highly commended for the 2016 Alan Bush Prize.  He has been featured as a composer-in-residence with the Chelsea Symphony, the Bizarre Noir Theatre Company, and was awarded multiple artist residencies at the I-Park Artists’ Enclave, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Ucross Foundation.  He has received an Honorable Mention from the 2015 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, and recently was awarded one of the top ten prizes from Mozaik’s Philanthropy’s “Future Art Awards” Competition for works created in response to COVID-19.  In 2019 Brian also received a fellowship to study Korean Music at the National Gugak Centre in Seoul.   

As a composer for film, his music for the Independent Short Film Misunderstood, directed by Pablo Herrán de Viu, was exhibited at the 2009 Screen Loud Film Festival in New York City, and the 2010 Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre de Humberto Solás in Habana City, Cuba. His collaborative work Sublime Oasis, commissioned by the East London Dance Company, was showcased at the 2012 Spitalfields Hidden Gems Dance Festival.

From 2009-2011 Brian was the Co-Artistic Director and Founder for DETOUR, a composer collective and New Music Ensemble, which was featured as “one the top five new music events of 2011" from New York’s Classical WQXR. He has also collaborated with UK’s record label Nonclassical as a concert curator, featuring emerging composers and artists throughout London and abroad. In addition, he was appointed as an Associate Member for the London Symphony Orchestra’s Composer Soundhub Scheme from 2015-2017, which culminated of his first video installation performance comprising of members from the LSO.  His curated concert series Ensemble in Process made its debut at the Iklectik Creative Space in Southeast London on 15 May, 2017.

Brian had completed his PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Gary Carpenter.  He is also a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Berklee College of Music, and Boston University.  He has received a graduate certificate in film scoring from the University of Southern California, and has also studied with Philip Cashian, Samuel Adler, David Conte, David Garner, James Russell Smith, and Howard Frazin.