Sally Lamb McCune

Taken was inspired by a speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, Ala. (1965), the day after Bloody Sunday:

If a man happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, some great truth stands before the door of his life -- some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right. A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he’s afraid that he will lose his job, or he’s afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he’s 80. He’s just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. The cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. He died…A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

It is difficult to write an instrumental work that ‘stands’ for something. Although I focused on a topic of great concern while writing Taken, I prefer not to prescribe a specific interpretation of the work. I consider Taken to be an invitation to the listener to consider those things which we hold dear -- our civil liberties, our civil rights, our loved ones, our environment, our attention, our data, our dignity; the list goes on. Identifying what we hold dear allows us to consider the ways in which our lives reflect these values. How do we spend our time? What do we stand up for? When we live a conscious life, we are in a position to make a difference in our communities. When we don’t, what we hold dear is more at risk of being taken.

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