VocalEssence debuts 2011-2012 Season with new works by giants of contemporary music: William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (September 12, 2011) — The 2011-2012
VocalEssence concert season debuts with The
Gift of Fire, presenting two new pieces, William Bolcom’s Prometheus and Michael Daugherty’s Mount Rushmore on Sunday, October 9,
2011 (4 pm) at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. A tremendous massed choir, including
the voices of the VocalEssence Chorus & Ensemble Singers, Magnum Chorum,
The Singers and the St. Olaf College Manitou Singers, will perform on this
concert along with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Philip Brunelle, Sigrid
Johnson and William Schrickel will share conducting duties. Tickets for The
Gift of Fire are $13.50-$43.50. For tickets and information, call 612-371-5656 or visit www.vocalessence.org.
“William
Bolcom and Michael Daugherty are two of the ‘giants’ of modern American music—
composers who write in many idioms and are particularly known for their music
for chorus and orchestra,” says VocalEssence Artistic Director Philip Brunelle.
“We were eager to work with several commissioning partners to bring new works
by each of them to light.”
Michael Daugherty incorporated the words and thoughts of
four American presidents in his new work for chorus and orchestra, Mount Rushmore. Co-commissioned by The
Pacific Symphony and VocalEssence, the 30-minute work for chorus and orchestra
is divided into four movements, each reflecting one of the iconic American
presidents carved into Mount Rushmore. The libretto includes a fragment of George Washington’s final letter;
excerpts from Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence; music suggesting
Teddy Roosevelt’s love of the wilderness; and the powerful words of Abraham
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Says Daugherty, “Drawing
from American musical sources and texts, my composition echoes the resonance
and dissonance of Mount Rushmore as a complex icon of American history. Like
Mount Rushmore, my libretto is carved out of the words of each President.”
William
Bolcom is already a familiar name to Minnesota audiences from the two-week Illuminating Bolcom festival organized
by VocalEssence in Spring 2007. The innovative young pianist Jeffrey Biegel
gathered a consortium of nine national partners, including VocalEssence, to
commission Bolcom to write for piano with chorus and orchestra in the style of Beethoven’s
Choral Fantasy. The result is the dark and highly evocative Prometheus. The text comes from Lord
Byron’s poem of the same name, portraying the Greek god who stole fire
from Zeus and gave it to mortals.
Bolcom
sees Prometheus’s gift as a metaphor for our time, symbolizing not only fire,
but also all modern technology. “We are now all Prometheus, chained to
our rock of technological dependency; there is no question that our
unprecedented advance has given the world enormous benefits we have no desire
of relinquishing — nor should we — but we are enjoined to see the dark side of
this bounty,” he writes in his program note for the piece, continuing, “My Prometheus is not devoid of hope, particularly if it points us to
begin to understand our situation.”
Jeffrey Biegel states, “The piano part is the kind that
people will feel a sonic effect, which provokes their emotions to feel the
inner sense of struggle, much as ‘Prometheus’ did. Punished by the gods for
giving simple humans a god-like use of fire, I have to feel as though I am
Prometheus.”
The Gift of Fire
concert includes two additional works. Associate Conductor Sigrid Johnson,
celebrating her 20th anniversary with VocalEssence, will open the
concert by conducting Gustav Holst’s Hymn
of Jesus. She will conduct the full orchestra and a combined chorus of 350
voices, including her women’s choir from St. Olaf College, the Manitou Singers,
who will sing from the third tier of Orchestra Hall. In addition, William Schrickel will conduct the Metropolitan
Symphony Orchestra in Samuel Barber’s Overture to The School for Scandal.
For
press information and high-resolution photographs related to The Gift of Fire, please contact Katryn
Conlin (612-547-1457, kconlin@vocalessence.org) or visit the press section of
www.vocalessence.org.