BACKGROUND

Often do I think of the words of the poet Robert Frost: ‘Two roads diverged in the woods and I — I took the one less traveled, and that has made all the difference.'

At 46, in the middle of an international business career in Africa for a New York bank, then in Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall for the U.S. Agency for International Development, I went back to the aspiration of my childhood to pursue justice through music, a non-judgemental language touching everyone’s emotions. Previously, I had worked for a European petroleum company as a chemist. . *** After moving back with my family from Central Africa, I reflected on the poverty, wars, and social injustice that I witnessed over the years, and enrolled in the Western Michigan University Irving S. Gilmore School of Music to focus on composition - particularly music for Peace. I reflected anew on the bike rides of my childhood, meandering from the First World War military cemeteries in the Belgian Flanders, to the World War II military cemeteries in the Belgian Ardennes.

The Suite “Of Barbed Wire and Red Roses” for large brass ensemble and timpani is the result of reflections on the civil wars that I witnessed while traveling in Africa. It was recognized with the Irving S. Gilmore Emerging Artist Award. Other awards from the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo Arts Outreach Grant and the Pharmacia and Upjohn Foundation Grant, reinforced the decision to pursue music, to follow the road less traveled. . *** Besides the first Concerto “Imagine New York” Op. 39 for piano and the Oratorio “Requiem for the Fallen” Op. 50 for soprano, choir and orchestra, other orchestral works are the uplifting Concerto for alto saxophone and strings “Springtime in Chicago” Op. 61; the large Cantata “Clamor Mundi” Op. 63; the left-hand piano Concerto Op. 68, which invites reflection on strength and peace; and the Opera “Myüno de Gasogne” Op. 47 on personal losses and tragedy in war time, and on hope. . ***

As a child, I was not allowed to do music because our parents, still traumatized by memories of WWII, were now enduring the Cold War. They were in tears, trying to feed six children, as the Russian tanks invaded Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1969). They relived the memories of the Nazi Panzer invading Belgium in the early 40’s and now feared the Russian ballistic missiles.

I was not allowed to study music to create beauty. Instead, I was pushed to study hard sciences and chose a masters in organic chemistry at the University of Brussels and a minor in nuclear reactions. I learnt music theory and self taught piano in secret; pursued work on a PhD in chemistry; worked several years for an oil company; relocated to the USA, with my American bride; and earned an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Following a decade in NYC and West Africa, and heading the Africa Division of a New York commercial bank, I joined the faculty of a university in Michigan to teach international business, finance and economics. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, I received a call from the US Agency for International Development in Washington DC. The job was the oversight of the Agency’s programs in Central Europe.

These experiences led to appreciating how the paths to peace must include mutual respect and cultural understanding to foster trust and maintain the lines of communication. I reflected on the Arts as a universal non-judgemental language and as tool for understanding and respect. So, at 46, I enrolled in the Western Michigan University Irving S. Gilmore School of Music.

Over the next decades, my compositions would explore respect and peace, and among them the oratorio ‘Requiem for the Fallen’, honoring the victims of war; the cantata ‘Clamor Mundi‘ about respect; the dramatic ‘Organ Sonata’ concluding on a solemn Fugue and a Heroic March, as reflections on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; numerous sets of pieces for piano and for brass including the joyful Ragtime ‘Brooklyn Two-Step’; the Concerto for Alto Saxophone ’Springtime in Chicago’ for my oldest grandson, a passionate saxophonist; the Toccata ‘Resolve and Pride’; and the Opera ‘Myüno de Gascogne’ in French, about tragedies and losses due to war.

These compositions are intertwined with works for chamber; chromatic carillon; the melody for soprano, horn and piano ‘Come Ye Who Love‘; the melody cycles for soprano & piano, for soprano, mezzo & piano, for soprano & harp, and ‘Yulia’ the cycle for soprano & string quartet.

***

In 2015, I composed a poem - a reflection on the relevance of Art - as an observation that beauty is all around us and the role of the artist is to reveal it... in poetry… in music… in drawing… in sculpture. When Michelangelo carved “David” from a block of marble, he slowly chiseled away superfluous chunks and chips of stone, allowing the revelation of the statue that was always there…

THE MUSIC CARVER ©

A man in the desert saw beauty but heard emptiness. He listened.

At night the wind would howl. He snatched the wind with his hands and fashioned balls of wind. He shaped the balls in different sounds and would throw them at the bird. Over time, he made thousands, nay, a million balls of air and added them to his pile of air… When he thought the trove of air big enough, he would kick it away and the running balls would play a symphony of sounds. Then it was quiet again.

The man was back to the silent beauty. And listened.

“What a pity that it takes so much effort and time for a few moments of sounds and only I and the bird hear it,” he reflected. One day, he saw an old dry and hollowed root. He carved notches and the wood became flute or clarinet or bassoon. Now instead of imprisoning the wind to organize his sounds, he led the wind inside the wood… the wind was no longer a captive and the sounds was music. Excited by the happiness that he wrought out of wood that was dead for so long, and out of wind, which had languished since forever, he looked for more wood, round or flat. And cut them to different sizes, and teased them with sticks… He marveled at the mellow sound of the first xylophone.

The man went back to listen to the silence of beauty.

“But why do I seek only what I can see? What is under my feet?” He started digging, and found metal ores of silver, copper, iron, tin and many more. He melted and smelted on the fire and in the oven that kept him warm at night and during winters. From vibrating strings, resonating wood, and bent metal, he made viols, violas and violins, harpsichords, pianos and organs, trumpets and still other horns. To add accent to their music he added percussion and bells.

The man rested, silent.

“Why me? “ he screamed at the sky. “Many more must hear music, must play music!” The bird came and sang her longest song. And the man listened: the bird knew that she was beauty; that the music carver understood that music springs from us as well as from things. “We are sopranos or baritones, all the voices - true sounding or not - and whistlers, too,”

said the woman.

Since the carver had cut his first sounds, some are born with predestined names. They are the famed - with last names - Monteverdi, Rachmaninoff, Ellington, and many thousands more. Then, there are the music makers - with first names mostly: musicians around us. We love these friends; I cherish mine. They sow the passion for music, and replay with us melodies and dances carved from ancient or recent harvests of balls of sound.

Emmanuel M. Dubois - April 19, 2015 - June 20, 2026