Stephen Melillo, Interview & Premiere Of, Love Conquers All

I talk to the Award-winning Composer Stephen Melillo, abourr working with the children in the chorus of Smithfield School to create the piece, Love Conquers All, The Gift. I also include the finished song to listen to. There are many children who need positive uplifting energy right now, and that is why we created this song.

Transcript

This is Cindy Palos.

Talk story,

The longest running talk show on Maui,

Been going 33 years.

And most of the time,

I know a long time,

33 years.

Well,

33.

I love it.

It's a good number.

And I think I'll hold it at 33.

Even after 34 and 35.

I'll just keep it at 33.

People can do math,

You know.

It's like,

Oh,

Let's see,

Add on.

But I have on the phone,

A very dear friend and a collaborator,

And someone who's an inspiration to me,

He's world renowned composer,

Steven Malillo,

With more than 1310 works that may not include what he did today,

Folks,

Because he's putting out works every day.

It's very hard to keep up to how much he's doing.

He's done four symphonies,

45 hours of music for ensemble.

And also the gosh,

You've got a lot of tellies,

What,

Three,

Five tellies you got,

Steven?

I know,

It's pretty wild.

Yeah.

Musician.

Yeah,

Yeah.

No,

Tellies.

And on top of that,

Of course,

That Pulitzer Prize nomination.

And that was pretty huge.

And all this amazing work you've done.

I met you through a collaboration of One Little Finger that Rupam Sarma was doing.

And then I landed up last year doing In the Hands of God.

You did a beautiful job and all the arrangements with that and included one of your pieces.

And that's up for Anahoku Hanohano Awards.

I'll be finding out July 20,

About that.

But this year,

It was totally different because I was so in awe of the musical inspiration that you tap into when you do your work,

Which is,

It's not your typical sound that you would think of.

It's cinematic.

It's very large.

It's symphonic,

You know.

So it was an interesting experience when I called you and said,

I want to do a piece of work.

And this is the idea,

You know,

And,

And it might have sounded really pretty far out.

But then again,

You know,

I can get pretty far out.

But But you said yes.

And it kind of took wing from there.

It's been six months,

About six months,

Right?

November,

I think it was in November,

That we began Love Conquers All.

And it kind of as any project does,

It takes on a life of its own at some point,

You know,

At some point,

It says,

Okay,

This is where this is going.

This is where that's going and evolved.

And it just got completed.

I'm just thrilled with it.

I mean,

Truthfully,

If I did nothing else in my life,

I'd be happy with just this piece.

This was like a lifetime achievement for me.

But the last one that was done,

Very last piece that was just recorded in May,

I think it was May 13,

If my mind remembers correctly on a Friday,

Was a piece of work that at first I was kind of going,

Oh,

There's no way when when you first describe what you wanted to do with the song Love Conquers All the Gift.

And you told me how you want to do it.

And I'm going,

I don't I don't know,

That sounds awfully challenging to do.

It's like what?

So but but you made it happen.

Let's describe the process of first of all,

How this song first of all,

Love Conquers All is the main title.

And there's a song.

And it's not an easy piece.

It's not an easy piece vocally,

Because it's cinematic.

It's symphonic,

Right?

But you wanted to take it to the children,

Right?

Right.

So there's two versions,

Right?

So there's a version that Darlene does,

Which is called Love Conquers All.

And then there's a second version called Love Conquers All,

Comma,

The gift.

And that song is completely different.

And it has different lyrics to it.

It's the same melody.

It's still a big orchestration.

But it uses a children's choir.

And the fact that their children has to be a part of the piece.

It's critical that the children are telling us this message,

And not like,

Say,

Let's say an adult choir,

They would have a completely different feeling to it.

So that's big.

That's a huge part of it.

Now,

I don't think it's hard to sing vocally at all.

It sort of has the range.

And I'm not again,

I'm separating now that what Darlene is singing,

That's a little bit more difficult.

What the kids are singing,

I would compare it to the range that you would experience in a church setting,

Like the congregation would have,

You know,

Certain range,

Let's say from maybe a low B flat to a D in the staff.

So the piece was constructed with that in mind,

That we would have kids.

And we would be working within their vocal ranges.

And the timbre and the feeling that little kids have,

That's the instrumentation,

That's the orchestration.

That's the feeling that we want to have when we listen to this.

We want to feel like our little kids are talking to us.

And I found,

And we both decided that we make this the single.

In fact,

I'm going to play it at the end of our conversation,

The world premiere.

Because the world has been going through so much trauma.

And we all know what had happened with the shootings and everything else that had happened.

And truthfully,

Hearing this song,

And I've listened to it,

Believe me,

Thousands of times,

Probably,

I've listened to it over and over,

Hearing the children sing a song that's so positive in its message,

Truly lifts your spirits.

But behind the making of this,

There was,

It was not an easy thing.

Number one,

With COVID and everything going on,

School was getting close to going up,

There was a lot of emails back and forth you had to do with Smithfield.

This is a Smith Smithfield school in Virginia that it was done at,

Correct?

Yeah,

It's,

You know,

I live in Smithfield.

And it's,

We had kids from the Smithfield High School Chorus and kids from the Smithfield Middle School Chorus.

So,

You know,

So I'm going to assume that your audience is like 50-50.

And I'm going to say that there's music educators in your audience,

You know,

People who are band directors and choral teachers and music teachers.

And then there's people who are,

You know,

Professionals.

And then there's,

Well,

There's a third kind of person,

Maybe just someone who loves music.

So to the music educators,

I would say there was nothing,

And they'll get a kick out of this,

There was nothing out of the ordinary about what we did.

It was a typical day in the life of a music educator,

You know,

Dealing with all the things that you've got to deal with.

So watch,

The music educators are going to be laughing right now,

And maybe not laughing,

But they're smiling,

Right?

So we had to deal with,

We had two hours.

So even though the principal was,

You know,

Hey,

You can come in here,

She actually gave me the master key.

I mean,

That was,

I mean,

Think about that.

I mean,

That's unique.

I told her,

I said,

You know what,

If you were my principal,

When I was a high school band director,

I would never have left teaching,

Because she was just all over it.

What do you need?

What do you need?

What do you,

And she gave me the master key and we went in there because the teachers weren't there.

See,

They had some kind of prior commitment.

So,

But you found that out like a day or two before recording,

Right?

Right.

And therefore,

You know,

After Roland got here,

So he's the German engineer or the recording engineer,

After he got here,

I said,

Roland,

We have a primary mission,

Which is to get into that school and meet the kids,

Because otherwise we're going to go in on Friday morning with two hours to record,

And they're going to be dealing with,

Well,

Who's this personality?

And,

You know,

Can we work with him?

And,

You know,

Is this whole thing going to function properly?

And I said,

We have to,

You know,

Stop that before it happens.

We have to go there,

Let the kids feel good.

You know,

A familiarity thing,

Get a repertoire going,

A repartee,

I should say,

Not a repertoire.

So,

But we went in there and there it was,

You know,

The bells ringing,

Right?

The change of classes,

The morning announcements,

The air conditioner,

You know,

Had a light come in.

Oh,

Yeah.

Roland was very,

You know,

You know,

That really upset his German thinking,

You know,

I mean,

We have this noise in the room,

And I'm just laughing.

I'm going,

This is school.

This is school.

He walks into the,

You know,

The room there,

And he says,

I smell apple pie.

Perhaps the children have apple pie.

I said,

No,

That's the cafeteria.

That's the cafeteria that's down the hall.

It was the funniest thing.

We were having a great time,

But the kids were all into it,

You know,

Like working around stuff.

I mean,

That's like,

That's like music education 101,

Right?

How do you work around stuff and get stuff done?

You know,

With the bells ringing and all that stuff like that.

And,

You know,

The lady coming on and,

You know,

Okay,

Whatever you stand now,

We're just going to say the Pledge of Allegiance,

Just all that stuff.

And of course,

Within those same two hours that that's happening,

We took the kids,

Some kids from the high school and some kids from the middle school,

And we put them in the middle school room.

And Roland set up his,

I don't know what you want to call it,

His array,

His matrix of,

You know,

Super expensive microphones.

So he comes,

He has this little,

You know,

It looks like a carry on bag.

And,

You know,

He's pulling out these little microphones from there.

He's setting everything up.

And I said,

It was Roland,

You know,

What's that bag worth?

I said,

Not the bag,

You know,

The stuff in it.

He goes,

About $50,

000.

So he was traveling with about $50,

000 worth of microphones and,

And,

You know,

The Pro Tools,

I don't know what you call it,

The station.

I would think that that had to be carry on.

I mean,

He flew in from Germany,

And you do not let $50,

000 go into check bags.

Oh,

It was definitely,

Yeah,

He definitely was carry on.

And I told him,

Where's your handcuffs?

Are you supposed to handcuff that thing to one of your hands?

So yeah,

We,

Like I said,

We had a lot of fun.

Well,

And he took the time to mic up and,

You know,

Miking a chorus,

As you know,

Because you've done many bands and many symphonies,

It's not an easy thing.

In a symphony room where you have soundproofing and everything set up for that.

But you were miking a school classroom with these kids.

Yeah,

That's right.

Yeah.

So I kept telling him,

You know,

Anyone can make an omelet with eggs.

The trick is to make one without eggs.

And once again,

You know,

That just summed up music education,

Right?

You know,

This is,

This is the reality.

We are in a,

In a,

You know,

Multi-thousand dollar recording studio.

We have a bunch of kids who are going to be itchy about getting to their next class.

The bells are going to ring in between,

You know,

And there's all kinds of noise and we're going to create,

We're going to do this thing.

But you see,

That's why I had Roland.

That's why I flew Roland in from Germany to do this.

So,

You know,

Very quickly,

Let me tell you why.

So I refer to him as the James Dean of recording.

And the reason is,

Is because when we were in Germany a couple of years ago to record my StormWorks chapter 55 CD with Das Musikor,

Their Bundeswehr,

He was the recording engineer.

And we developed a rapport because,

You know,

I have,

I'm very particular about the nature of sound and where it should be placed and how it should be picked up and where people are sitting and so on.

It goes,

It's pretty deep,

You know,

And I'm very particular about how it should be.

And Roland was just,

Tell me what you want.

And he got so deep into it that he actually became,

For me,

I would say like a liaison to the electronic mathematical engineering world of music.

He can now look at one of my scores and he knows what he has to do electronically.

And one of the things that we did on that CD was we recorded a chorus in Clarence High School,

New York in Buffalo.

And so Roland came in for that.

And the experience there was so so powerful.

I said,

Roland,

I said,

If we do this thing with the kids here at Smithfield High School and Smithfield Middle School,

You got to be the man.

We got to fly you in.

He came in,

You know,

I made them pizza and pasta and everything all week long that he was just having fun.

And one night he taught me how to make schnitzel.

So,

You know,

We were just having fun.

And,

You know,

We had a bunch of cigars lined up and pipes,

But we only smoked one cigar during this whole time because we were pretty,

We were pretty at it.

We were pretty busy.

So one of the things that happened also on that day,

So you can picture now,

You know,

This little window of opportunity to record stuff,

You know,

Avoiding this and avoiding that.

And the person who was supposed to sing the solo in this was a no-show.

You didn't ever tell me that.

You never told me that.

Oh,

Yes.

So and again,

The music educators out there are smiling,

Right?

So,

You know,

It's like,

It's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

We have a jazz band competition tonight.

Where's the drummer?

You know,

It's like one of those kind of things,

Right?

So the person who is supposed to sing the solo part that happens in the center of the piece,

It's a no-show.

So now,

And remember now,

I have no,

I don't know these kids,

Right?

I just met them for,

You know,

A few minutes on May 10th,

And now it's May 13th and we're under microphones and we're recording.

So I said,

Okay,

Which one of you guys wants to do the solo?

That's what I said.

Which one of you guys wants to do the solo?

And all the kids pointed to this girl.

She has to do it.

She has to do it.

And it was this girl named Catherine,

Catherine Day.

And I just looked at her and I said,

You want to do it?

And she was like,

You know,

She's very shy.

Yeah,

I'll do it.

And so,

So when we got to the end of the,

You know,

That it was less than two hours.

When we got to the end of that,

All the kids left except Catherine and a friend of hers who was like there for moral support.

It was really cool.

And Catherine just got,

You know,

Up in front of the microphone.

And it turns out that she was the perfect person.

You know how God always orchestrates everything just right for you.

She was the perfect person because the whole thing,

Remember,

Is the voice of innocence.

It's the voice of children.

And she had this little innocent,

Angelic voice.

And she's talking to us.

And that was my coaching to her,

You know,

And my coaching to the kids.

I said,

You know,

If an adult were to sing this or an adult choir were to sing this,

Everyone would listen to it and say,

This is corny.

This is dumb.

This is not a message for our time.

I said,

But this,

This,

This sword Excalibur,

I think was the word I used,

Is actually given to you.

You guys have the ability now to tell a story.

And people will hear it differently because it's coming from you.

Because it's coming from innocence.

It's coming from children.

And I talked to him just that openly and honestly about it.

And that's exactly,

I mean,

They stepped up to the plate.

It was a beautiful thing.

And I,

You know,

I can't wait to give them this recording because I know that you're having,

You know,

100 CDs made.

Yeah.

And I'm like,

I can't wait to give this to them.

They probably look,

What's a CD?

They're gonna have to go out and buy a CD player.

Yeah.

They have to find that.

But it was beautifully done and it touched my heart with the innocence,

With the hope,

With everything I was hoping for.

And Roland was amazing.

And then he did this immersive sound that was amazing,

That was put together with you.

And,

You know,

And something like this is,

It was actually miraculous.

If you were going to try to plan it out and do it,

It really would have been off the charts and expense,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

But it got pulled together in a miraculous way.

And I just love it.

You know,

It's part of the bigger piece,

But the rest of the piece is going to be more of a holiday Christmas special extravaganza.

But this one stands on its own.

And that's why it's a single.

It's never been played on the air before.

I'm going to play it for the first time here.

But it's also a video that is out.

And if you go to thisloveconquersall.

Com,

That's the website,

Thisloveconquersall.

Com,

You'll be able to see the video.

This is kind of a preview video that was made.

And I have a page there dedicated to this gift.

It's called the gift page.

And you can see the pictures.

And I had never done a libretto before.

And it's a brand new experience and not an easy one.

But being the symphonic person Steven is,

That one's taking a bit of work.

We're almost finished with that as well.

And that will be posted as well.

I just,

All I can say really truly,

This was quite an experience.

And I learned so much.

I really did learn so much.

I've been doing,

This is the 13th album.

Of course,

You've got like 45 albums.

But I learned so much from this project.

And I'm just really grateful,

Steven,

For your knowledge.

I know you're working on like three or four big projects now.

And I'm really,

Really grateful for your time.

And I know you're working on a number of projects now and maybe soundtracks,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

On a mass you just did.

The work you've done is massive.

So a mass was just done in the last week or so too.

And I'll have a chance to talk more about that in the future.

But on this one,

Just a bow of gratitude.

And to the kids and the parents,

Because it's a whole thing.

And the kids are just so much more than just a family.

And I think that's what I'm really grateful for.

And I'm really grateful for Roland especially,

Of course,

For making this one possible.

It was.

That's why I think we came up with the title,

The Gift,

Right?

Because that part of it was truly the and the innocence and the inspiration and the hope that I think it carries for people.

So I know you have a million things to do.

You're on the East Coast there.

And it's getting into like your third project of the day probably.

But I thank you for taking the time for calling in and giving us this story.

You're the source of all of it.

No,

I'm not the source.

I'm just.

Well,

You're the second source.

The second source.

You're the inspiration for.

The music is a reflection of the inspiration of your words.

So that's where it's coming from.

Yeah,

You did the music and you did the help with the lyrics on this one as well.

And you did because you knew it had to work with the kids.

So thank you.

And let me just play it.

I think the words and the music will speak for itself as well.

So God bless and thank you,

Stephen.

Thank you.

So it doesn't matter.

Oh,

Oh,

Oh,

Oh,

You It doesn't matter at all But love over all May be as pretty as all If we answer the call For love conquers all For love conquers all May be as pretty as all

Reviews

That’s so beautiful 🥲 Thank you 🙏