Musician travels through New Mexico for Route 66 composition field research

Mar. 19—Roaring car engines, service station bells and train whistles once were part of the peppy soundtrack to a jaunt on bustling Route 66.

Now, the only sound in spots along the long-decommissioned highway is the wind that once lifted the smell of hamburgers to hungry travelers' noses.

It's amid that often-desolate backdrop that Nolan Stolz is soaking up the inspiration needed to create his "Route 66 Suite," set to be ready for orchestras to perform before the road's 100th anniversary in 2026. The University of South Carolina Upstate music professor is on a 15-month sabbatical to conduct field research — which consists of four complete car trips back and forth between Chicago and Los Angeles.

That journey can sound deceptively simple. Traversing every part of the former Route 66, which in an early incarnation passed through Santa Fe, requires a lot of driving on other roads and backtracking, Stolz said in an interview Wednesday during a visit to the city. Stolz is three states into his third round trip between Chicago and L.A., meaning he's set to pass through New Mexico three more times following this visit.

Stolz said he listens to sounds along the route — train whistles, squeaking signs — for impressions, not to re-create them.

"I'm thinking of more conceptually," he said of how he interacts with the landscape, adding, "I'm trying not to write melodies and chord progressions and things quite yet."

At least two of the eight movements in Stolz's piece will cover territory especially familiar to New Mexicans: "Desert 66" and "66 Ghost Towns." While the former is location-specific, he said, the other seven movements are topic-focused.

"For the 'Desert 66' movement, it'll be wide-open spaces, the mountains in the background," Stolz said of what he'll picture when composing that segment.

The rocky landscape long has enthralled the University of Nevada, Las Vegas graduate.

"Having grown up in Las Vegas, I have an affinity towards the desert," Stolz said. "I am attracted to those open spaces."

He said he's similarly fascinated by ghost towns and spent a semester researching those that lie along or near Route 66.

During that research, "I found many ghost towns along Route 66 that are not mentioned in any of the Route 66 literature — usually because there is nothing there." Stolz is drawn to such off-the-map locales and said they'll feature prominently in "66 Ghost Towns."

Although Stolz isn't composing on-site during his travels, classical music is a prominent part of his journeys. He listens to it in the car when he's not deep in thought, he said, and live performances beckon along the route.

In fact, Stolz took in the Santa Fe Symphony's "Dvorák, Higdon & Rouse" program at the Lensic Performing Arts Center during a previous visit Feb. 13.

"I want to always associate the sound of the orchestra with the road and everything that I'm seeing," he said.

As a result, Stolz now associates composer Jennifer Higdon's "Blue Cathedral" with both being at the Lensic and the drive on Cerrillos Road into the city.

Symphony Executive Director Emma Scherer said Wednesday she met Stolz at the performance, and "I was fascinated to talk to Nolan, to get a sense of his process."

She said the nation's landscapes have a great tradition of inspiration, especially the West.

"All of us here in the symphonic world, we feel like classical music is a living art form," she said. "That's why it's important that people are still composing for orchestras and for chamber groups."

Stolz said he arranges meetings with locals along his route, getting insider advice unavailable in books.

"You know, it's really easy to get assumptions about a place from things that you've read, and then you show up and you can be very myopic," he said. "So, I try not to go to the places that everyone says, 'Oh, you need to have a blank at blank. You [should] eat a burger at this place.' I just come in with an open mind and talk to people, get their perspective on their life, their town, whatever."

Stolz is set to return to his work in South Carolina in August. In the meantime, a residency has allowed him to use Osage Arts Community, on a farm in rural Missouri, as a home base.

He doesn't get to visit often, given his time-consuming scrutiny of the former highway nicknamed the "Mother Road." Stolz estimates Route 66 travelers covered 200 to 300 miles in a day, while he averages about 75.

Earlier work

The "Route 66 Suite" isn't Stolz's first road work. He completed his "Lincoln Highway Suite" in time for that historic but lesser-known road's centennial in 2013. It was the nation's first transcontinental road, stretching from San Francisco to New York, according to the Lincoln Highway Association preservation group.

"One of the movements of 'Lincoln Highway Suite' is called 'Traversing the Mountains,' " Stolz said, describing a section that might especially resonate in the Southwest. "The movement is structured where you have two main themes — one that represents the mountains and one that represents the valleys between those mountain ranges."

Before that, he created music reflecting the majesty of Mount Charleston, which towers over part of southern Nevada.

"High pitches represent the peak of Mount Charleston," Stolz said. "Very thick, big chords represent this large mountain."

What's next

Stolz hasn't formulated titles for all eight "Route 66 Suite" movements yet. He does know that another movement will focus on lodging along the road, and he's staying in accommodations near what's left of the highway when he can.

The final movement, he said, will focus on old theaters and is titled "The Show Will Go On." Among those on his radar screen is the Paris Theater, which was at 123 W. San Francisco St. in Santa Fe and burned down in 1945.

David Knudson, executive director of the National Historic Route 66 Federation, a California-based group that promotes the old highway, said he hadn't heard about Stolz's project and that it will be "interesting to hear."

"Any significant activity regarding the Route encourages people to check it out which is what the Federation is all about — getting people out on 66," he wrote in an email. "That's what keeps it alive."

An associate of Stolz's, R. Nicholas Gerlich, credited Stolz for "completely immersing" himself in Route 66 culture and history.

"Dr. Stolz has taken the time to experience it through all its nuances — heat, cold, snow, rain, and wind," Gerlich, a professor of marketing at West Texas A&M University, wrote about the journey in an email. "These are the natural elements that will find their way into melody and orchestration."

Indeed, Stolz has staggered his trips to ensure he passes through each region during multiple seasons.

He said he could see himself writing more location-based orchestral pieces but not necessarily road-focused ones. In the meantime, his Route 66 project might get tiring at times because of the driving involved, but it's never tedious.

"You know, I never get bored," Stolz said. "People say, 'Road trips are boring.' Well then, you're doing them wrong."