Downtown United Presbyterian Church, 121 N. Fitzhugh St., Rochester, NY, 14614
Add this concert to ICALTo close our fourth season, First Inversion offers exuberant, reflective, and evocative music celebrating the beauty of the earth. Jake Runestad’s “Come to the Woods,” sets text from John Muir’s journals to take listeners to the top of a majestic fir tree to experience a summer storm. The concert opens with pieces depicting sunrise and morning light and closes with a moving reflection on a star-filled summer sky. Throughout the concert, our imaginations will delight in stunning poetry by James Agee, Wendell Berry, Mary Coleridge, Robert Herrick, Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, and Walt Whitman. Familiar and lesser-known composers of the 20th and 21st centuries share with us their musical interpretation of these timeless words. Come, join First Inversion for a journey of intense beauty and wonder.
Program
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun: Sunrise – Michael Hennagin, Light of a Clear Blue Morning – Dolly Parton, Arr. Craig Hella Johnson, Rise Up My Love, My Fair One, and Come Away – Healey Willan, The Blue Bird – Charles Villers Stanford, To Daffodils, from Flower Songs – Benjamin Britten, Psalm 23, from Requiem – Herbert Howells, Les Fleurs et les Arbres – Camille Saint Saens, Kasar Mie la Gagi (The Earth Is Tired) – Alberto Grau, The Peace of Wild Things – Jake Runestad, Come to the Woods – Runestad, Down in the River to Pray – American Negro Spiritual, Arr. J. David Moore, O Shenandoah – Traditional American Song, Arr. James Erb, Afternoon on a Hill – Eric William Barnum, Sure on this Shining Night – Morten Lauridsen