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Persistence
Date and Time
Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Location
Shorecrest Performing Arts Center
Shorecrest High School
15343 25th Ave NE
Shoreline 98155
Program
| Haley Woodrow | In Two Places | |
| Omar Thomas | Of Our New Day Begun | |
| TBD - Selected Works | performed by African American Cultural Ensemble | |
| Johannes Brahms | Three Chorale Preludes | |
| Aaron Copland | Variations on a Shaker Melody | |
| Fergal Carroll | Song of Lir | |
| Dmitri Shostakovich | Finale from Symphony No. 5 |
Description
Join Seattle Wind Symphony for the third concert of our 2023-2024 season!
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The program includes works for wind band inspired by strength and tenacity. This concert will feature special guests, the Northwest African American Museum's African American Cultural Ensemble.
Program Details
The concert begins with In Two Places by Haley Woodrow. The piece explores the composer’s reflections on the feeling of being pulled in different directions at a time of transition, coupled with her determination to keep moving forward.
Omar Thomas’s Of Our New Day Begun was composed following the attack and murder of nine people in an act of domestic terrorism at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, on June 17, 2015. The piece is a palpable storm of tragedy, confusion, and strength. In Thomas’s own words, “the greatest challenge in creating this work was walking the line between reverence for the victims and their families, and honoring my strong, bitter feelings towards both the perpetrator and the segments of our society that continue to create people like him.” (https://www.omarthomas.com/of-our-new-day-begun). The Northwest African American Museum's African American Cultural Ensemble will be featured in this piece, and will also perform several unaccompanied vocal selections.
Chorale Preludes by Johannes Brahms are a series of intimate, reflective pieces composed largely around the decline and death of Brahms’s dear friend and fellow composer Clara Schumann. Aaron Copland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody from the Appalachian Spring ballet combines emerging melodies of Americana and hopefulness with the gravity of the international scene in 1944. Song of Lir by Fergal Carroll is a melodic work reminiscent of an Irish lament that weaves the Irish myth of Lir, about a king whose children were turned into swans for 900 years, with a 17th century harping tune, “Captain O’Kane."
The concert concludes with the finale to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5: a powerful work that sweeps the listener along on a relentless march that was historically described as a forced rejoicing. Shostakovich publicly described the piece as “A Soviet’s reply to just criticism.”
Featuring
African American Cultural Ensemble, choir
Inspiration comes from heritage, arts, and culture. Within the African American tradition, choirs have been significant vehicles for inspiration, comfort, and collective healing. Choirs have always played an important role in keeping Black heritage and Black ancestral stories alive through singing spirituals, freedom songs, and songs of hope.
For more information about ACE, please visit https://www.naamnw.org/ace
You can learn more about this concert on our website, sammamishsymphony.org.