Lucy is the affectionate name given to the 3.2 million year old skeleton Australopithecus afarensis discovered by Donald Johanson in 1974. In 1979 I saw an artist’s rendition of what he thought Lucy might have looked like and from that picture, I got the inspiration to write music that would try to convey what her life was like three million years ago.
The concept of writing about someone who lived so long ago took 10 years from time of conception to completion. In the interim, I learned everything I could about her species, how they lived, died, survived in an ever-changing world that included every type of environmental upheaval imaginable.
The actual writing of the Lucy score took 3 summers of very intense work. I lived, breathed, slept Lucy and in the summer of 1991, the music score was complete. The orchestration took 8 weeks but at the end of the summer, I not only had notes on paper but a story about someone who lived 3 million years ago.
In 1999, Lucy the ballet came to life and was performed by the Louisville Ballet at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. Since her realization, she has been videotaped by KET for broadcast, won an Emmy, a Gabriel, and a NETA award. The music has been recorded by the Greensboro Symphony, and was reprised in 2002 by the Louisville Ballet. Lucy is a tribute to our species, our ancestors, and ourselves.