Composer Michael Markowski (b. 1986) claims that he is “fully qualified to watch movies and cartoons” on the basis of his bachelors degree in film from Arizona State University. Despite this humility regarding his musical training (and glossing over the performance of his joyRIDE at Carnegie Hall when he was a high school senior, and his Frank Ticheli composition prize for Shadow Rituals the following year), he has gained attention as a composer of unique and sophisticated works for wind bands at all levels, film, and other media. His works are being performed across the United States and around the world, leading to an ever-growing list of commissions and guest appearances. Learn more about him at his website, IMDB, the Wind Repertory Project, Metropolitan Music Community, the Everything Band Podcast, and United Under Arts.
Markowski wrote Drawing Mars in 2019 on a commission from Chris Gleason and the Patrick Marsh Middle School 7th Grade Band. He used this full band version as the basis for a version for flex band and electronics, completed in 2021. In addition to an electronic audio track, the flex version includes a video component featuring soprano Hila Plitmann. The original inspiration for both versions comes from the life of Percival Lowell, for which the the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona (a special destination for the 12-year-old Michael Markowski) is named. Lowell believed that he saw canals on the Martian surface, which led him to conclude that there MUST be intelligent life there. Markowski continues this story in his program note, excerpted from his website:
The crazy thing about all this is that people believed him! Actually, there was really no reason to doubt him. He was well-educated, he had the best technology available for the times and one of the biggest telescopes in the world. He wrote three really convincing books arguing this theory, and in 1905, even The New York Times ran a full page article under the headline “THERE IS LIFE ON THE PLANET MARS: Prof. Percival Lowell, recognized as the greatest authority on the subject, declares there can be no doubt that living beings inhabit our neighbor world.” In fact, it would take another 50 years for scientists to get close enough to Mars to see in better detail that oh… there aren’t actually any Martian-made canals after all. Although we now know that the canals that Lowell saw were largely psychological tricks, his observations captured the imagination of the world and even inspired early 20th century science-fiction like H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s many Mars-inspired books.
I don’t think the music in Drawing Mars tells a story about aliens invading Earth or of “first contact” or anything like that, but I do think it tries to get inside Lowell’s head as he looks through his telescope, night after night, in the dark, all alone, as his mind maybe starts to wander… and wonder… woah, what if I’m right? What if there is life on Mars?
Of course, we now know that Lowell’s imagination maybe got the best of him, but as Einstein said, “imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
Here is a performance of the original wind band version:
True to Markowski’s film roots, he produced a trailer for the flex version:
In this video, he explains all of the features of the flex version, and the rationale behind it:
He also made a rehearsal video for it, complete with bar numbers, linked rehearsal marks, and (again) Hila Plitmann:
Learn more about the piece at Markowski’s website (full band and flex versions) and the Wind Repertory Project. And don’t miss this teaching guide from Chris Gleason.