Premieres and Encores Syracuse Vocal Ensemble (Cazenovia)
The Syracuse Vocal Ensemble and Society for New Music are collaborating on a concert called “Premieres and Encores” on May 16th and 17th. The program will feature choral and instrumental pieces by current and former CNY composers. The repertoire includes a piece commissioned by the vocal ensemble by Syracuse University composer and Professor Emeritus, Earl George, who set several Shakespeare texts in a collection called “Weather Reports and Other News.” “Four Romantic Songs” by Crystal LaPoint features texts by Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley in a lush harmonic language. WNCY Manager and host, Diane Jones composed a piece for chorus that sets her own text for the winter solstice when nature waits to reemerge in the Spring. Composer Mark Olivieri, on the music faculty at Hobart-William Smith, composed “The Night’s Stars All Our Souls” for the college’s choirs, and the piece will receive its second performance at these concerts. It is a dramatic and haunting piece that revisits the arrival of slavery in Geneva, NY. Completing the program will be two scenes from the opera “Pushed Aside” by Ithaca composer Persis Parshall Vehar. The opera was commissioned by Society for New Music and is about Matilda Gage and the suffragette movement in Central New York. The soloists featured are Laura Enslin, Danan Tsan, and Gregory Sheppard. We will also present two pieces from the amazing song cycle by Kirt Erickson which focuses on those left behind by the tragic Pan Am 103 disaster which took the lives of Syracuse residents, particularly 35 Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad and will feature Kathleen Roland Silverstein. Sar Shalom Strong will present new work by newly retired Hamilton College professor, Doc Woods. This is a piano solo full of whimsy.
Dates & Locations
Saturday 5/16 starting at 7:30pm @ Erwin First United Methodist Church, Syracuse
Sunday 5/17 starting at 3:00pm @ Cazenovia Presbyterian Church
