LYRIC: Betty Ong Contacts American Airlines

On 9/11, American Airlines flight attendant Betty Ong made a heroically calm air-to-ground call to relay the harrowing details, in real time, of a hijacking that would end at the World Trade Center in New York City.

The call was recorded.

First to confirm details of the unfolding disaster, the conversation later helped US Intelligence track the flight's hijackers to Osama Bin Laden.

With the blessing of the Ong family, Todd has partnered with five-time Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal to set an adaptation of that call as a dramatic 25-minute oratorio for choir and two sopranos: Grammy-winners Hila Plitmann and Sangeeta Kaur, with plans to expand the ensemble to include an eventual full orchestration. A premiere is expected as soon as September 11, 2026.

Todd's text, while remaining true to the call's content, will take some creative liberties with the story, reframing its particular window onto the event with intimacy, grace, and heart.

In the fifth movement, for example, Betty will report from the other side of death in a moment of transformation that leaves earthly terrors behind and arrives in a place of surprising peace, however incongruous with circumstance. "This is what art does best," says Todd, "lifting us away from the vérité, and dreaming a world beyond." In this surprising movement, Betty’s story moves past the “American” and becomes both deeply personal and unexpectedly universal. With the choir’s support, it will call for a different response to the disaster than the one that would make history.

Just as he was able to dramatize a beleaguered Mother Earth by imagining her epic-scale point of view in Earth Symphony, Todd will draw upon the same capacity for empathy and compassion that he demonstrates on his podcast, There's a Poem in That, to tell this story with depth and sensitivity.

The goal is to draw inspiration from the heroism of Betty Ong and the other flight attendants on AA 11, UA 175, and AA 77, and AA 93, by dramatizing their journey.

The project is currently seeking commissioning and presenting partners for a planned 2026 choral version and a later fully-orchestrated one. Project management support is being provided by Arabella Arts and Dworkin & Co. Legal support is provided by Grumbles Law. Besides writing the libretto, Todd is also acting as Executive Producer on the project, with Hila Plitmann co-producing. The project was originally inspired by street art by printmaker Brig Brednich.

In recognition of the Ong family's loss, the creative team encourages presenting partners to make a charitable contribution to the Betty Ann Ong Foundation, which extends Betty’s legacy to make a brighter future for children in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

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It was important to me to reach out to the Ong Family for approval before this project got too far down the road, and I'm grateful for their willingness to work with me on it. I'm also humbled to have such consummate artists on the team. I suspect this will make for a cathartic experience for concertgoers, and not just a tragic one, but one that opens to light, and connects us with our better angels.