Cowtown inspires movie composer’s suite for Wichita Symphony

George S. Clinton did not step into Wichita’s Old Cowtown Museum in January 2019 expecting to emerge with all the makings for a musical composition.

“There was just something about that place that resonated with me emotionally,” recalled Clinton, a film composer best known for the soundtracks to the “Austin Powers,” “Santa Clause” and “Mortal Kombat” movies. “As we made our way from building to building down the main street, I was wondering what it would have been like to have lived at that time in those conditions out in the middle of nowhere, really. Each place seemed to have a different effect on me.”

The Wichita Symphony Orchestra will debut “Old Cowtown Suite” in one performance next weekend.

In Wichita with Holly Mulcahy, the symphony concertmaster and partner for audience engagement, symphony CEO Don Reinhold took them to Old Cowtown the weekend the orchestra was performing a sample of “Rose of Sonora,” a Western-themed violin concerto featuring Mulcahy.

Cowtown executive director Jacky Goerzen and farm manager Greg Hunt took the three on a snowy Saturday morning tour.

“We had a lot of fun,” Clinton recalled. “I fell in love with the old nickelodeon piano. It’s totally out of tune – the years have not been kind to it. So when Greg starts it up and it starts playing, it’s some other instrument entirely. You can’t even imagine what the tune would have been at one time.”

That inspired one of seven movements in the suite. So did Rosie, the lone cow at Cowtown at the time.

“She was just so sweet,” Clinton said. “She’s like a dog, she wanted to be petted.”

In the last movement, he said, Rosie is sitting alone in her stall at night – “Maybe she’s dreaming of what it’s like to run with the herd.”

The suite begins with “The Trail,” a salute to the Chisholm Trail, which Clinton learned was a 1,000-mile trek from south Texas to Wichita, so cattle could be herded into a train going to Chicago. Ten cowboys, a horse wrangler and a cook were delegated to each herd of almost 2,500 cattle.

“A lot of the cowboy myth is from that. … I loved doing that research,” he said. “Just my imagination of what it would be like to be on that trail – the excitement of the cows and the herd and nights at the campfire. “

The next movement is “The Church,” picturing Christmas Eve in Cowtown, with a light coming from the building. “There’s a sense of hope and community that you only have on Christmas Eve,” he said.

Next is “The Jail,” where a lone prisoner sits in despair with only a candle as light. “The contrast is the hope of the church and the despair (of the jail).”

“The Nickelodeon” follows, with the sound of the brand-new instrument at the beginning of the movement, leading way to the sound falling apart, ending with eight measures of the actual sound made when Clinton and company visited.

“Prairie Reminisces,” which the WSO played as a sneak preview last spring and is featured on its website, follows, and then a movement called “Blacksmith and Print Shop.”

“Iron and ink, right?” Clinton said. “Two very powerful things that formed the West, but in their own way and with their own magic.”

“Rosie Dreams of the Herd” concludes the piece.

Mulcahy has a few solos in the piece, which Clinton considers to be in the same universe as “Rose of Sonora,” postponed by the pandemic, which will close out the 2021-22 WSO season in April. She contacted him several years ago about creating a Western-themed violin concerto.

“She’s become my muse in a way, I have to confess, strictly on a musical level,” Clinton said.

He said the pieces are likely forming two-thirds of a trilogy.

“It’s just a lot of fun to be in this universe and play around in it and know there’s another one,” he said. “This is a triptych, I know it.”

“The neat thing about George is that he approaches life to be inspired,” Mulcahy said. “He’s one of the most inspiring and curious people I know. I’m not surprised in a way, but I’m inspired by his creative process and how he turned the experience to art. It’s quite a gift for the Wichita area too.”

Mulcahy said she’s always had an appreciation for the Western movie soundtracks, and that Clinton perfected captured an Old West feel in both works.

“What’s depicted in Hollywood films is not really how it went, but we created this myth and along with that myth has come this language that we want our Westerns to sound like – that feeling of open spaces and wild horses and drama with good versus bad,” she said. “It’s so American.”

Mulcahy has soloed with “Rose of Sonora” in seven performances nationwide so far this year with one more to go, and five more performances scheduled for 2022.

A Chattanooga, Tennessee, native, Clinton moved to Los Angeles with hopes of being a rock star and, by age 30, realized his dreams weren’t going to come true, he said with a laugh. Comedy duo Cheech and Chong saw his band in L.A. and asked if he would be interested in writing music for their 1983 movie “Still Smokin’.”

He has amassed nearly 100 credits as a film composer since, most recently the “Zombies” movies on Disney Channel.

“I have a 7-year-old neighbor. She thinks that I’m the coolest person in the world because I do the music for the Disney ‘Zombies’ movies,” he said with a laugh.

George S. Clinton hit the music scene a few years after his namesake, the leader of Parliament Funkadelic, exploded in L.A.

“We’re friends. He calls me his brother from another mother,” Clinton said. “Sometimes I’ll get checks for ‘We Want the Funk’ and sometimes he gets checks for ‘Austin Powers.’”

Writing a classical piece, he said, has similarities to writing a movie score.

“As a film composer, you have to leave your imagination open,” he said. “You have to let what you’re seeing affect you and create music that emotionally resonates with that moment. It was a similar process, but instead of a movie it was the piece itself.”

Clinton regularly asked Mulcahy for her feedback on the piece.

“She’s very good when I bounce things off of her. Concert music is very new to me, and she has been doing it a very long time and has been helpful in terms of keeping me on track for soloists,” he said. “I really value her musical taste and her ability to hear the overall picture.”

Clinton likewise praised the Wichita Symphony.

“I’m so impressed with this orchestra — not only the level of musicianship but the progressive attitude for everyone who works there, the staff and Don and particularly Daniel Hege” Clinton said of the orchestra’s conductor and music director. “I’m so blown away. It’s a great combination of people. I couldn’t wait to write a piece for them because I knew it would sound great.”

“Old Cowtown Suite” A world premiere event by Wichita Symphony

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9

Where: Century II concert hall, 225 W. Douglas

Tickets: $25-$65, from wichitasymphony.org or 267-7658

Concert: Also on the program are Quinn Mason’s “Petite Symphonie de Chambre Contemporaine (après Milhaud)” and Aaron Copland’s “Clarinet Concerto,” featuring Trevor Stewart