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Artistic intent, relationship to score and site, intended audience experience. For BLINK 2026, Cincinnati Music Hall.
The Common Ascent is a large-scale projection mapping work proposed for Cincinnati's Music Hall and inspired by Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. The premise is an exploration of how American individualism has morphed across time, by examining how the concept of the frontier transformed from geographical exploration, to industrial advancement, to technological innovation. A timely examination of today's networked world, The Common Ascent asks who is the "common American" in 2026?
Originally composed during World War II, Copland's work honors the dignity and importance of ordinary people, inspired by the concept of "The Century of the Common Man." Its bold brass language and spacious drama continue to resonate because it elevates collective human effort through individual contirbution. This project seeks to extend that spirit into the present moment.
Which brings us to today, where the frontier is increasingly invisible. The "unknown" that we're exploring is contoured by information, connection, and the daily participation of millions of people. The bleeding edge is no longer the sole purview of the rugged explorer. We all of us find ourselves on the frontier whenever we pick up our phones, and contribute (knowingly or not) to the growing body of data informing how our future will be shaped.
The Common Ascent visualizes this evolution in five chapters: Prairie, Steel, Silicon, Present, and Future. Each chapter transforms the façade of the Music Hall into a dynamic representation of that era. Landscapes and open plans become architecture. Architecture becomes machine. Machine becomes network. Network becomes human light.
And so, the final chapter turns toward hope. Rather than presenting technology as alienating or deterministic, the work proposes that the next frontier is collaborative and human-centered. Thousands of individual points of light rise together into a shared constellation, transforming Music Hall into a beacon of possibility. We as individuals, when our power is aggregated, constitute an institution more powerful than even the most daunting giants of industry or technology.
Cincinnati Music Hall is an ideal site for this story. In addition to the historical touchpoints of its construction in 1878 and Landmark status in 1975, the building itself bridges many American eras. Its famous façade carries the memory of the industrial age while serving contemporary audiences today. Projection mapping allows the architecture to become an active participant in the narrative, revealing new identities and showcasing an unfolding narrative, without erasing its historic character.
For audiences at BLINK, the intended experience revolves around joy, delight, and wonder, followed by reflection and conversation. The piece is designed to be visually legible at large scale, emotionally accessible to multigenerational viewers, and rewarding across repeated viewings. Ideally, we blend spectacle with heartfelt meaning-making, realizing a small instance of the piece's vision for collective action as the viewers share a beautiful and thought-provoking experience.
At 250 years, America is still relatively young, and its story remains unfinished. It's worth returning to Henry A. Wallace's words that inspired Copland in the first place, where he said: "No nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations." The next chapter belongs not to distant myths of conquest, but to the people already shaping it together. If we can play a small part in joining those people in art and conversation, the piece will have been a success.