Welcome to our October Newsletter!
WELCOME to our October newsletter and Happy Autumn to everyone (in the Northern Hemisphere)!
We are still feeling elated after a very special opening concert-weekend of Sarasa’s 2024-25 Season, “Voyages in Music." Transversing four centuries of classical music from the British Isles, the beguiling program paired Henry Purcell songs with “Household Music” from Ralph Vaughan Williams, tenor Jason McStoots gave a moving account of poetry by Thomas Hardy in a tour de force setting by the much under-appreciated Gerald Finzi, we performed a newly commissioned set of variations on Orlando Gibbons’ madrigal, The Silver Swan, by Robert Merfeld for cello quintet, and all was set off by the pulsating energy of John Blow’s Chaconne a 4.
Many audience members from our Brattleboro, Cambridge, and Lexington concerts remarked what a deeply meaningful program this was. If you missed the concert, or would like to experience it once again, or share with a friend, please tune in tonight at 7:30pm to view our free streaming of the live concert, filmed at Follen Church in Lexington! The concert will be available to view for a couple of months, so please share with your friends and family!
Outreach news:
Perhaps more than anything, the music we bring to detention centers in the greater Boston area helps to encourage the youth to dream and conceive of a better future. We visited two facilities in Dorchester with our “Silver Swan” program; one for teen boys and the other for girls. The group of boys, which numbered around 15, seemed shy and reticent. They listened and noticed a lot, but were not as willing to participate, despite much encouragement. The much smaller group of girls, however, was from the minute they walked into the door very outgoing, warm, and they could not wait to sing with us. After playing excerpts of our program, they sang at the top of their lungs and asked for us to return, very soon!
Some testimonials from participants in our recent Outreach Presentations:
harvest time listening corner:
With Fall begins the cycle of the natural world preparing for the colder months ahead, of harvesting, of gathering crops, of putting our gardens “to bed,” of reaping the benefits of what we have sowed. In Greek Mythology, it symbolized the months of the year when Demeter abandoned her crops in search of her daughter, Persephone, abducted by the God of the Underworld, Hades. Many composers, poets, and visual artists have found inspiration in the River Styx and Hades’ realm as a dramatic setting for loss and return.
As we look forward to our November concert-set, we will explore music by friends and compatriots Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodály. They famously travelled across their native Hungary to collect and research its folk songs, as well as those from Romania, Slovakia, Moravia, other regions of Central Europe, Bulgaria, Turkey and further afield. Sarasa will be performing a few of Bartók's Duos for Two Violins; here is his Harvest Song, aptly named for this time of the year.
did you know?
Ub Iwerks, the great pioneering American animator who created Mickey Mouse, worked closely alongside Walt Disney, first as illustrators for a newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri, and then together in the studio. Here he marries the score of Camille Saint-Saëns' famous Danse macabre, Op 40 with an ingenious animation short “Skeleton Frolic" from 1937.
up next:
Composers of the Occident gladly soaked up the sounds of the near Orient, adding extra spice and depth of flavor to their musical concoctions. Our program looks at those Eastern traditions influencing a wide swathe of Europe in a potpourri of Baroque and 20th-century music. Works by Lully, Rameau, Ali Ufkî Bey, Biber, Bartók, Kodály & Vivaldi.
We look forward to seeing you then!
Sarasa is excited to have the dynamic violinist Elicia Silverstein return for this program. She will be performing the brilliant Concerto in D major, RV 208 Il grosso mogul by Antonio Vivaldi. If you’re a fan of The Four Seasons, you’ll love this!
the pressures of the holidays…
Cul-de-sac © R. Thompson
credit: Yayoi Kusama (b.1929)
