SFNM's Season Opening Concert Celebrates composers from 9 to 94 years old

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 • 7 pm
Stieren Hall, Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe New Music opens its seventh season with a multifaceted concert featuring a signal work by 94-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Brant, a world premiere commission by Ingram Marshall, and the 1st place composition of the New Mexico Young Composers' Project.

Santa Fe New Music debuts its 2007-2008 season with a concert at Stieren Hall that features works from a 17-year old Santa Fe high school student, to Pulitzer Prize-winning nonagenarian Henry Brant — along with the world premiere of the first commissioned piece by the SFNM CoMISSION Club. The program unfolds Wednesday, October 10, at 7 p.m. at Stieren Hall on the Santa Fe Opera campus.

A 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner for Ice Field, Henry Brant is revered as a pioneer of “spatial music,” performances of live music in which various instruments are positioned on the stage or throughout the concert hall. Many of Brant's works are performed al fresco, in parks and plazas. For the Santa Fe performance of Rainforest, an “environmental spatial oratorio,” 21 musicians, four solo singers, and two conductors will be positioned around Stieren Hall at the Santa Fe Opera. The 1989 composition is scored for string ensemble, piano, harp, percussion, woodwind quartet, and brass trio.

SFNM Artistic Director, John Kennedy, who conducted this work at the 2004 Spoleto Festival USA, feels this piece has particular resonance for SFNM audiences. “This is the final installment in SFNM's 2007 theme of ‘Music and Water', which included two previous programs in April. Rainforest is a work of great environmental sensitivity, a visionary work by Brant – and given the conditions in the world, it is even more resonant today than it was when it was composed in 1989.”

While Brant is well-known for “spatial music,” Ingram Marshall's acclaim stems from lyrically combining live musicians with electronically recorded sounds amassed from Marshall's travels throughout the world. Marshall, who received wide critical and public acclaim for his 2007 piece Orphic Memories, premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, will be in Santa Fe for the premiere of his newest work, Sea Tropes.

The recurring notion of “tropes” in Marshall's music conveys his interest in medieval liturgical music (wherein monks practiced “troping,” or adding onto pre-existing chants) as well as Marshall's contemplation of the ocean itself as a trope that continually adds onto itself. The topic of Sea Tropes links Marshall's work to SFNM's Spring 2007 “Music and Water” festival, and thematically complements the “music and environment” theme of the season opening concert.

Sea Tropes is the first commission of the SFNM CoMISSION Club. Formed in 2006, the CoMISSION Club is an opportunity for community members to come together to bring a significant new work to the repertoire. The 2008 CoMISSION Club will launch with the October 10 concert, with a new work schedule to debut in 2008.

“It is a great honor for SFNM to have a composer of Ingram Marshall's stature composing a work for us,” says Kennedy. “Ingram has followed a quiet and humble career path, but followers of new music have known for years that his voice is unique and enduring. We expect Sea Tropes to make a splash in the music world and have a long life beyond Santa Fe.

“SFNM's CoMISSION Club provides an opportunity for people of all means and persuasions to join forces to commission new music. With memberships starting at $100, we are making this kind of patronage accessible to people of modest means, as well as those who are able to commission at higher amounts. The CoMISSION Club is an important component of SFNM's work to advance the music of our time.”