GOLD for Orchestra from The Adventures of Jesse Owens

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1954, Michael Daugherty is a GRAMMY® Award-winning composer who teaches at the University of Michigan School of Music. As the titles of his famous compositions—which include Dead Elvis (1993), Jackie O (1997), and American Gothic (2013)—suggest, Daugherty finds inspiration in popular culture. He does not take a mass-media approach to creativity, however; as The London Times describes, he is “a master icon maker” with a “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear.”

The Adventures of Jesse Owens was commissioned by the National Intercollegiate Band and premiered in 2023. “Many works I’ve written have been inspired by American icons,” explained Daugherty. “Like Rosa Parks, Elvis, Ernest Hemingway, Georgia O’Keefe, Abraham Lincoln, and so forth. And I was always fascinated with Jesse Owens. When I was a young kid growing up in Iowa, I remember hearing about Jesse Owens and reading a book about him. It was just a fascinating tale.” After finding an original 1936 Olympic medal in an antique store in Lithuania, he knew he had to make the work a reality.

The Adventures of Jesse Owens consists of three movements. Daugherty writes of GOLD, the final movement,

By winning four gold medals and setting world records in the 100 meter, 200 meter, 400 meter relay, and long-jump, Jesse Owens became the most successful athlete of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. His victories made international headlines as “the fastest man in the world,” challenging the German Nazi doctrine of Aryan supremacy. Inspired by the superhuman feats of Jesse Owens at the Olympics, the brightly orchestrated final movement, marked “Presto,” moves at breakneck speed to a triumphant finish line.