I grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, where a Confederate monument funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy had stood on the county courthouse lawn since 1900. It was still standing in 2017, when I wrote Monument in response to the removal of Confederate monuments elsewhere in the country. Those removals followed decades of advocacy, with the Black Lives Matter movement helping to build wider support and awareness.

Many of these monuments were erected long after the Civil War. They were intended to give dignity, beauty, and permanence to a distorted version of history. Their removal prompted a reconsideration of whom and what our public monuments should honor.

At the beginning of the piece, a melody moves very slowly in the low register of the piccolo and clarinet, sounding hollow and at odds with the severe harmony around it. That same melody recurs throughout the piece, moving faster, taking on different characters, and shifting from the background to the foreground.

I see Monument as a monument in its own right—to the courage required to confront uncomfortable truths and the resolve to bring about change that serves the greater good.

Monument was premiered on February 23, 2018, by the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Donald Crockett.

—SC