Before Moss heard Beatty’s music, he heard the veteran’s story. Amazed by his journey and how the composition came to Beatty, the two met and found they had similar interests in music styles, and Moss was excited to jump on the project.
“Coming Home — A Journey of Healing through Music” is made up of several 3-5-minute tracks, played by an ensemble of string, brass, woodwind and percussion. They’re punchy, Beatty said, as he doesn’t like his music to stay in one place for too long.
“[The composition] just is very string-focused, very expressive, very musical in the way that it sort of shapes up and down,” Moss said. “Each individual track is a story you know, it tells a story. It is a journey in a way.”
In addition to working with Beatty to bring together an ensemble and conduct the live recording, Moss is also the music copyist, taking the compositions Beatty used computer software to create and making it easier for a musician to follow.
Once live recording is finished, Beatty and Moss don’t have a set plan, but depending on funding and other factors, they could move towards releasing the recordings for purchase or scheduling live performances for people to attend.
“I think the goal right now in Spencer’s and my mind both is just, let’s get this thing that he’s created and make it human,” Moss said. “Let’s put real humans behind it and get something that he can record and he can take with him for the rest of his life and into his retirement and feel proud of. Any life that has after that, I think, will just be icing on the cake.”
