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Jonathan Fields
L-SID Productions
Perfromed by Ghostlight Chorus directed by Dr. Evelyn DeGraf and Contemporaneous Ensemble directed by David Bloom
“7 Psalms for 8 Composers"
The beauty and creative power of two of the most expressive artistic forms, poetry and music pulsate through the Psalms of King David.Written thousands of years ago, these odes express the dramatic life of the ancient people of the covenant. Here is also a treasure that has informed Christian religious experience and through the centuries has been used by musicians and artists as an inspiration to express the deepest aspects of human experience.
New York Encounter will present an evening of word and music with seven composers lending their formidable skill and talent to creating music inspired by the Psalms.These composers by opening their hearts to these prayers of old will bring us new and imaginative musical reflections.
This diverse group of artists, David Horowitz, Andrew Bloch, Sebastian Modarelli, Gabriele Vanoni, Timothy Dusenbury and Jonathan Fields, with Justin T. Fields composing interludes for harp, promises a unique evening of music involving varying perspectives and musical styles. These composers excel in different forms of expertise from the worlds of film, concert and sacred music.
There are many precedents of composers using the psalms to express something both very personal and expansive. Brahms, in his "German Requiem" highlights the depth of longing and fragility of human existence. Stravinsky tries to reconcile the ancient text within a modernist sensibility in "The Symphony of Psalms". Steve Reich reaches back into his Jewish tradition employing a contemporary minimalist structure with his work "Tehillim". Finally Arvo Part explores the depth of the intimate and mysterious dialogue with God with his dramatic setting of the "Miserere".
This evenings concert provides a possibility for the composers to be helped and to help us to reach what seems almost a forgotten aspect of experience. This is the realm of the sacred. This is the realm of a dialogue so deep within us and silent and mysterious and ultimately what is most human. This dialogue seems so foreign to contemporary daily life where our humanity is so often reduced to a series of hurried if not desperate reactions with no underlying connectivity or sense, only countless soundbites and images.
In fact, all music and poetry and all music makers and poets no matter what their confession is or none at all still seeks in their music making something beyond, something within that is ultimately "intimately themselves" and which no power or ideology can crush or destroy. From this point of view David of long ago, the Poet/Musician/King reflected through the artistry of these composers perhaps has much to share with us!
In conclusion this evening of music hopefully will serve as a bridge, better, a multitude of bridges.
A bridge towards the human experience of the past, a bridge toward our dialogue with the Infinite, but also a bridge between our desires and shortcomings, between our hopes and fears. And finally a bridge connecting us to each other, as the Psalmist says,
"Behold how pleasant it is, when brothers dwell in unity!"