"For quite a few years, it was my habit to walk in the Boston Public Garden as often as I could, and it was during these walks that I found myself stopping before a particular tree and pausing to admire it. 

The tree is a beautiful specimen of the Chinese dawn redwood, or meta-sequoia, and over time my fascination with it grew into a full-fledged infatuation. I later learned that the dawn redwood dates from the Mesozoic era, and until as recently as the 1940s it was thought to be extinct. Fossils of its presence in the deep past did exist, but when live specimens were discovered in China, the tree became referred to as the “living fossil.” Standing before the tree, one can sense its age and feel its wisdom. 
 
I kept this affair of the heart very much to myself for several years until one day when I was walking in Boston’s Arnold Arboretum with Dr. Shiu-Yung Hu, the Harvard based botanist, to whom I’d become recent introduced. During our stroll we casually paused in front of a large tree that I hadn’t looked at closely enough to recognize immediately. Pointing to the tree, Dr. Hu explained that this tree was the oldest metasequoia in North America and that she had planted it in the late 1940s using seeds she had brought with her from China. I was thunderstruck by this coincidence, and when I told her of “my” metasequoia in the Public Garden, she informed me that the younger tree I loved so much was also one of her children. 

Later, when I was given the opportunity to write a piece for Gil Shaham, I thought of Dr. Hu and her tree. The result was TreeSong for violin and orchestra. The piece doesn’t aspire to “describe” the tree per se, but it does attempt, in my mind at least, to connect the great beauty and dignity of this magnificent conifer with the elegance and grace of Gil Shaham and his art."

–John Williams

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Duration: 20 minutes
Premiere Date: 2000
Revised: 2004