PROGRAM

Unhistoric Acts (2021) Chaya Czernowin
— US premiere —

Commissioned by The Crossing and Südwestrundfunk

— brief intermission —

Beloved of the Sky (2020) Tawnie Olson
— world premiere —

1. I went down deep
2. I woke with this idea…
3. Oh, that lazy, stodgy, lumpy feeling
4. The subject means little
5. I made a small sketch

commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers

This concert is being recorded for broadcast by our partner WRTI 90.1 FM,
Philadelphia’s Classical and Jazz Public Radio Station

NOTES + TEXTS

Unhistoric Acts
music by Chaya Czernowin
text compiled by the composer, including words from Ecclesiastes, Bridgett Floyd and Daniella Frazier, and those of the singers

Commissioned by The Crossing and Südwestrundfunk

a note from the composer:

Unhistoric Acts is the middle panel in the triptych VENA. VENA (current, vein, pulse ) consists of three evening-length pieces written between the years 2020–2023 in three parts: Memory Palace, Unhistoric Acts, and Immaterial. Unhistoric Acts is written for string quartet and 24-voice ensemble. It is dedicated to: JACK Quartet, SWR Vocal Ensemble and Yuval Weinberg in Germany, and The Crossing and Donald Nally in Philadelphia.

“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and things which are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the member who lived faithfully a hidden life and the rest is in unvisited tombs” —George Eliot/Middlemarch

The text is composed of three types of materials:

1. From Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) Chapter 3: “Everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the sky; A time to live and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot”.

2. Words taken from the context of George Floyd’s murder. There are words of his sister, Bridgett Floyd (“He was never a stranger”) and words of Darnella Frazier, the 19-year-old woman who took the video of George Floyd (“I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life.”)

3. Words thought of and spoken by the choir which every singer brings from their own world according to some indication. Mainly these individually spoken texts are about the pandemic.

This is a piece of rage and mourning. Rage about George Floyd’s murder and the historical injustice it brings to the fore, and mourning during a pandemic.

The composer would like to thank Amnon Wolman and Dorothea Hartmann who contributed meaningfully to the creation of the piece.

Beloved of the Sky
music by Tawnie Olson
words by Emily Carr

Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers, completed while in residence at Copland House, Cordlandt Manor, New York, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award

a note from the composer:

Although she is not well known in the U.S., artist and author Emily Carr (1871–1945) is a Canadian icon. She spent most of her life in Victoria, British Columbia, where she created rapturous, ecstatic paintings inspired by the landscapes and indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. “Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky” (1935) is one of her most famous paintings. It shows an impossibly tall pine, alone in the midst of a clear cut, haloed by light and clouds. Like many others, I see this painting as a kind of self-portrait of the lonely, eccentric, brilliant artist, her way of affirming her own value in the face of a lifetime of hurt, misunderstanding, and rejection.

As I read through Carr’s journals, I was particularly struck by her descriptions of the creative process. Waking up in the morning with a fresh idea, struggling with the discouraging lies that a creative block fomented in her brain, catching her breath as she discovers the image she’s looking for, becoming totally absorbed in a quiet day of steady work; I think these are experiences that most of us can relate to, in some form, to some degree. I set these texts because I wanted to explore and celebrate the creative process and the search for “beauty,” however defined. And because when I went down deep into myself, I found that they rang true.

1 - I went down deep

I went down deep into myself and dug up. (June 24, 1937)

2 - I woke with this idea…

I woke with this idea. Try using positive and negative colours in juxtaposition. Complementary are negative to positive. Try working in complementaries; run some reds into your greens, some yellow into your purples. Red-green, blue-orange, yellow­-purple. (Feb. 7, 1934)

3 - Oh, that lazy stodgy, lumpy feeling

Oh, that lazy stodgy, lumpy feeling when you want to work and you're dead! Is it liver, I wonder, or is it old age, or just inertia, or something from which the life has gone forever, that just belongs to youth? (Jan. 11, 1931)

4 - The subject means little

The subject means little. The arrangement, the design, colour, shape, depth, light, space, mood, movement, balance, not one or all of these fills the bill. There is something additional, a breath that draws your breath into its breathing, a heartbeat that pounds on yours, a recognition of the oneness of all things. (Jan. 17, 1936)

God, God, God! Oh, to realize so completely that you could utterly let go and passionately throw your soul upon the canvas. (Jan. 29, 1934)

5 - I made a small sketch

I made a small sketch and then worked a larger paper sketch from it. The woods were in quiet mood, dreamy and sweet. No great contrasts of light and dark but full of quiet flowing light and fresh from the recent rain, and the growth full, steady and ascending. [ ... ] "This is thine hour, 0 soul, thy free flight into the wordless." (Sept. 7, 1933)

TEAM

The Crossing

Katy Avery
Nathaniel Barnett
Jessica Beebe
Steven Berlanga
Karen Blanchard
Steven Bradshaw
Colin Dill
Micah Dingler
Ryan Fleming
Joanna Gates
Dimitri German
Steven Hyder
Michael Jones
Lauren Kelly
Anika Kildegaard
Heidi Kurtz
Maren Montalbano
Rebecca Myers
James Reese
Daniel Schwartz
Rebecca Siler
Tiana Sorenson
Daniel Spratlan
Elisa Sutherland

Donald Nally, conductor
Kevin Vondrak, assistant conductor
John Grecia, keyboards
Ryan Flemming, John Walthausen, guest rehearsal accompanist
Paul Vazquez, sound design
Jonathan Bradley, executive director
Stephanie Lantz-Goldstein, development manager
Shannon McMahon, operations manager
Elizabeth Dugan, bookkeeper
Sam Scheibe, summer associate

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