Performance

The concert opens with contemporary composer Michael Torke’s December, evoking his memories of “cozy cheer in the early days of winter” in Milwaukee. It is followed by Pulitzer-winning composer Kevin Puts’ bright and beautiful Flute Concerto, with Dallas Symphony flutist and Meadows faculty member Kara Kirkendoll as soloist. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s richly expressive Fourth Symphony. Written during a turbulent period of his life in 1877-78, it focuses on the power and inevitability of fate, yet ends on a positive note recognizing the possibility of happiness. The composer called it “an echo of my most intimate spiritual life.”

The program features two pieces from Benjamin Britten’s tragic 1945 opera Peter Grimes, the composer’s first to become a critical and popular success. Four Sea Interludes, which includes “Dawn,” “Sunday Morning,” “Moonlight” and “Storm,” and the Passacaglia both provide psychological cues in the opera’s dramatic story of a fisherman accused of murdering his apprentices. The second half of the concert features Gustav Mahler’s ebullient, colorful Symphony No. 4, which explores themes of childhood, innocence and spirituality. Its final movement is based on a German song that translates as “The heavenly life,” offering a child’s view of heaven, and will feature soprano soloist and Meadows alumna Alissa Roca.

This award-winning play by the late Sam Shepard follows the jagged, complex relationship between two families. Considered a landmark work by a playwright at the height of his powers, it moves between Montana and California, husbands and wives, parents and children, and brothers and sisters. Both raw and moving, funny and frightening, A Lie of the Mind explores the hungry heart of the American landscape.

In the Beginning . . . will open with (what else?!) A Big Bang – the world premiere of a fanfare for brass and percussion by Meadows composer Alex Shawver. It seems only fitting that our Big Bang be followed by Darius Milhaud’s classic from 1923, La création du monde – the first work to successfully combine jazz with so-called “classical” elements. Gershwin, who is also represented in the MWE’s 2018-19 season, often gets credit for this with his iconic Rhapsody in Blue, but Milhaud actually beat him to the punch by one year. The program will also include performances of two works inspired by La creation …: a second world premiere by Alex Shawver, his ominously titled The Destruction of the World, and Aaron Copland’s seldom-performed Music for the Theatre. Both works pay homage to Milhaud stylistically, and even mirror his form and instrumentation to a degree. For fans of “fusion” music, this is a definite can’t-miss concert!