This final episode (pgm 10) of Performance Upstate offers three pairs of delights. We'll hear two world premieres, two choral works by Eric Whitacre and two choral ensembles. We'll also enjoy a Beethoven Piano Trio from the Geneval Music Festival and some Baroque rarities captured live in concert with Pegasus Early Music performing.
Here's what one Madrigalia member said about the "Earthkeeping" concert, and Glenn McClure's Cry in particular:
"McClure used data that he himself collected from ice melting as a result of climate change to compose the music, which is just stunning. It doesn't have a tonal center, and the words are very simplistic, which I think makes the message all the more poignant. Rarely does a concert theme speak so directly to a pressing contemporary issue, in this case, climate change. Our choices and how they affect the planet we call home are always becoming more and more critical. I am grateful to have been part of an endeavor to center this conversation and provide a space to grieve the things we've already lost."
C.P.E. Bach: Cello Concerto in A (Eastman Collegium Baroque Orchestra, Adrienne Hyde, bc; REMF, 2019)
First Inversion set II: Whitacre: i thank You God for this most amazing day Taverner: Song for Athene Brumley/Kirchner: I'll Fly Away
G. F. Handel: Concerto Grosso, No. 5 (Eastman Collegium Baroque Orchestra; Lydia Becker, Ryan Cheng, v; Charlie Reed, c; REMF)
“Earthkeeping” concert, Part 1 (Kevin Nitsch, p; Madrigalia, Cary Ratcliff, cond) Kocher: For the Beauty of the Earth Waldemar Ahlen: The Earth Adorned Whitacre: Little Birds Ratcliff: Great Trees (premiere)
Julie Pinel: Printems, Charmes de l'indifference, Musettes pour un berger (Adriane Post & Boel Gidholm, v; Lisa Terry, viola da gamba & c; Naomi Gregory, hc; Deborah Fox, theorbo & g; “Nevertheless, She Persisted,” Pegasus Early Music)
Beethoven: Piano Trio in E-flat (Shawn Moore, v; Hannah Collins, c; Esther Park, p; "Clive Greensmith and Friends: Chamber Music Finale," Geneva Music Festival)
“Earthkeeping” concert, Part 2 (Kevin Nitsch, p; Madrigalia, Cary Ratcliff, cond) McClure: Cry (world premiere), The Famine Song (VIDA Quartet)
Read the interview with Glenn McClure from his trip to Antarctica to "Listen to the Ice," the inspiration for his composition. McClure was there as a kind of translator in 2016, to look, listen, and write music in response to the place. There wasn't much to see, he says. No birds. No rocks. No plants. The horizon simply blended into the sky, and he found it disorienting, like being on an ocean of white. But it was noisy, he says, full of sounds like wind and the crunch of different kinds of snow.
