New Music Commission in honor of paul lundin

Notes from Composer Catherine McMichael

Being asked to write a string quartet to recognize the devotion, musical integrity and passion of Paul Lundin for bringing beautiful, challenging live music to the Upper Peninsula communities of Manistique and Escanaba for 30 years is more than a request. It’s an honor.

Even though I’ve lived in Michigan since my University of Michigan student days of the 1970’s, I didn’t know much about the U.P. I’d only visited for a day here and there, several times. So the first step, to be able to begin finding themes for this as-yet unwritten piece, was to see what the magic was that brought Paul and his musicians back every year to a very out-of-the-way place on the planet just to play music.

I said to my husband Rod, also a violinist, “We need to go to Escanaba!” So off we went for a long weekend last October. We strolled through the pretty village of Manistique, and continued on to Escanaba. The trees were a-flame, of course, this being Michigan in October. The weather was simply superb. But what I needed to see, and was entranced by, was Little Bay de Noc, upon which Escanaba is located. As we passed by, we stopped for a long look. The water was shimmering in the morning light. I knew my inspiration would be coming from that view. Many diverse elements go into the “soup” when formulating themes for a piece. There’s a vital native American presence in the U.P. which I want to include in some way as intrinsic to the feel of the area. Every Michigander is all about the lakes, and the broad expanse of Lake Michigan needs to be part of the piece too. But I also like to use a secret formula in the thematic material of a piece, if applicable, by using the musical letters of a name as the propelling element of the melody. In this case, the musical letters of Bay de Noc are just too tempting to pass up. If you know anything about music, you know that every note that a musician plays has a name, and that name is a letter, A through G. A-B-C-D-E-F-G are the only letters used to write the musician’s bible.

If you extract the musical letters of Bay de Noc, you get

B-A-D-E-C

If you include “Little” or better yet, “Big” you get still more:

It’s a lot like putting Scrabble letters on my rack as I search for thematic melodies. I try on different ways to use the letters without changing their order. I can use flats and sharps, all sorts of different rhythms, go up or down from one letter to another. The great variety of letters in the name of this lovely bay multiplied by the many ways I can use them is like a treasure trove of possibilities for themes. I’ll probably use them in several different ways in various sections of the piece, making them unrecognizable as coming from the same source, but mysteriously unifying the piece in a subliminal way.

Having some time to let these ideas simmer is a luxury. The piece is planned to be on a summer 2027 program. Rod and I will be going back to spend a week in Escanaba June 2026, and I’ll be working on the piece in my head while taking long walks along the Lake Michigan shore while we’re there, contemplating the beauty of the place. I can’t wait to see what the water gods bring me.