Composer Joel Thompson plots a journey toward healing in ‘To See the Sky’

Composer Joel Thompson credits the inspiration for his orchestral work To See the Sky to a single line from the song “Thunderclouds,” written by jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant: “Sometimes you have to look into a well to see the sky.” 

To See the Sky, which had its world premiere in March 2024 by the New York Philharmonic, under Jaap van Zweden, is Thompson’s longest orchestral work to date. “It gives an indication of his future music,” said Patrick Summers, artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera, where Thompson is composer-in-residence through 2027. "With no hyperbole, To See the Sky is music of extraordinary beauty and deep content. To hear an orchestra of such dazzling quality as the New York Philharmonic bring Joel’s imagination to full life was a very moving thrill."

Commissioned by the American Composers Forum, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and Bravo! Vail Music Festival, To See the Sky will be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Jaap van Zweden, in concerts Feb. 12-15. 

Thompson has said of his work: “The movements outline a non-linear journey toward healing.” “He has achieved this in every possible way,” said Summers in a video interview posted by Houston Grand Opera. "The listener’s emotional journey of To See the Sky is more than simply satisfying; it is cathartic and self-realization. Quite an achievement. 

“Primary among his many gifts is an ability to juxtapose several musical styles simultaneously, forming a melodic and colorful musical narrative that anyone can understand, but which also challenges virtuoso musicians like these,” Summers said. "To See the Sky was 20 minutes in length, and the musical material could easily have been twice that. One wanted it to last longer. Large-scale structures like opera are clearly in his DNA, based on a work like this. 

Along with being a composer, Thompson is a conductor, pianist and educator whose works “aim to prioritize community and facilitate connection,” while creating music that is “alive and inquisitive, in constant dialogue.” His work is both “powerful and incisive in centering the concerns and desires of the voiceless and historically marginalized,” the New York Classical Music Review has observed.

Another of one of Thompson’s gifts is “writing non-vocal music that sounds like it has words, a trait he shares with Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and many of the late-Romantic composers,” Summers said. "Even Beethoven would set silent words. Once one knows that the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth outlines the word ’liberte!,’ one can’t hear it any other way. Joel’s music belongs in that company. His music feels so much like the distillation of poetry, yet when he expands and lets it soar, it overwhelms in the best way. This couldn’t be a more triumphant and satisfying work."  

Thompson’s other recent commissions include an expanded orchestration of The Snowy Day, a work he originally composed in 2020, based on Ezra Jack Keats’ Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book of the same name. The book is regarded as one of the first mainstream children’s books prominently to feature a Black protagonist.  Thompson was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, working with children’s author Andrea Davis Pinkney, to capture the book’s sense of enchantment in an operatic format. An expanded version of the work was commissioned by the Minnesota Opera and performed by the company in February 2025. 

Another commission is On Mars for mezzo-soprano, viola and piano, which had its world premiere in January 2025 at Atlanta’s Spivey Hall with mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, violist Matthew Lipman and pianist Tamar Sanakidze. Subsequently, the work was performed on tour, with dates at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Celebrity Series of Boston and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.