SETTING A RIVER TO MUSIC
Composer Dan Rager Celebrates A South Dakota River

This article was originally published on the American Rivers Web site, and is used with that organization's permission.

Composer Dan Rager on the James River.

(www.AmericanRivers.org, August 2002) Music has always been a natural way to celebrate a river's spirit. And today, more and more local groups and communities are using music to both educate and inspire. There's nothing like a song to strengthen the connections between a community and its river. Or, in the case of Columbia and Aberdeen, S.D., and the James River -- a symphony.

Thanks to Cleveland, Ohio, composer Dan Rager, this prairie river that flows through North and South Dakota will soon have a symphony written and performed about it.

Rager - a college music professor, composer, conductor, and trumpeter - visited the James River in northern South Dakota early this month. He is planning several more trips to the river and surrounding countryside as well as to local museums and archives. Rager will draw inspiration from both the river and the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge, a waterfowl sanctuary that straddles the James. Rager will incorporate the look and life of the river into his composition.

"I love visiting new places and making new discoveries," he declared while discussing the project. He was surprised to learn that the James is the Missouri River's longest tributary.

Paddling the James on an overcast morning in early August, Rager marveled at the tranquility and wildlife along the river. "This river and the country around it are more beautiful than I imagined," he exclaimed from a wooded blufftop overlooking a sharp bend in the river.

Rager was particularly interested in the river's slow current, its dramatic meanders, the mix of woodlands and grassy slopes along the shoreline, and the 200 year-old burr oaks and towering cottonwoods occupying the modest bluffs bordering the river's floodplain.

Another characteristic that aroused his curiosity was the large number of dead cottonwoods in the floodplain along the river. During the 1990s the James was in an almost constant state of flooding, and many of the riverside cottonwoods drowned. Dying cottonwoods lose their tough, fibrous outer bark and the inner bark's sapwood is eventually bleached white during exposure to the sun. Great numbers of these trees now stand lifeless, their trunks and leafless limbs gleaming like ivory. It's a unique place that will surely inspire unique music.

Rager's work is part of a nationwide program called Continental Harmony - a leadership initiative of the American Composers Forum and the National Endowment for the Arts. Over a three-year period, the program will include projects in all 50 states.

Rager is also hoping to add photographic visuals to his symphony, using a slide show or video presentation. "I am so overwhelmed by the place, including the sunsets and sunrises, that I would like to include specific images as a way to enhance the musical experience," he says.

The symphony will be premiered on July 4, 2003, in Aberdeen, with Rager conducting the Aberdeen Community Orchestra. (2003 is a noteworthy year for the debut as it marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System.) Rager hopes the piece will be performed by numerous orchestras in a wide-range of venues.

A river symphony - a wonderful gift to the people of Columbia and Aberdeen, and an inspiration to other river communities across the country.

Learn more about the Columbia, S.D., Continental Harmony project.