Stravinsky & Bruckner: A Masterworks Concert
Saturday, June 8 | 8:00pm
General $20 in advance • $25 at the door
Songs Under Starlight
Puttin’ on the Ritz
Saturday, June 15, 2013 | 7:00pm
- Starring Members of Ars Musica
Call +1 (201) 767 – 7548 for invitations and reservations.
Creating “Longed-for Rain”: Music by Martha Sullivan, Text by James Najarian
“When Kelly Crandell first asked me to consider writing a piece for Ars Musica, and requested that it somehow embody an Armenian theme, my first thought was not the country of Armenia, or the difficult history of its people. I don’t feel qualified to address those matters in music, as profound as they are. Instead, I thought of my college friend James Najarian.” Ms. Sullivan says that even when they were undergraduates, “he had a distinctive voice as a poet, and has gone on to write poetry of lean strength, using words in unusual combinations that manage to sound utterly right.” The poem “Longed-for Rain,” with its imagery of a parched desert replenished by a storm and the restoration of sight to the blind, recalls the prophet Isaiah as well as Jesus Christ’s healings. She praises Najarian, whom she says “also writes with a mastery of formal structure that recalls the Psalms. All of this made the poem seem like a natural companion to and an appropriate bridge between Stravinsky’s ‘Symphony of Psalms’ and Bruckner’s Mass [No. 2 in E minor].” More
Member of the Month: Lorraine Heffernan, Alto
In 1998, after waiting patiently until Ars Musica returned from its tour of Fance, alto Lorraine Heffernan finally got the call from Frieda Holober that she had been hoping for: “He (Italo Marchini) will hear you now!” Lorraine had been intrigued by the newspaper account of the chorus’s inspiring performance of Haydn’s The Creation, when the lights went out during a storm but the performance continued with the help of floodlights from the fire department and flashlights. Already a member of the all-women’s Ridgewood Choral and encouraged by its Music Director Marge Vandervoort, Lorraine was eager to join the larger 4-part group. Involved with choral singing since grammar school, although not having had academic musical training, she took some voice lessons with Theresa Minnocci, from whom she learned to keep her mouth wide open when singing, “the same way that Kelly [Crandell] now reminds the chorus to do.” More
A World Premiere Opportunity for You!
We are offering Ars Musica members and patrons the opportunity to support the commission of Martha Sullivan’s “Longed-for Rain,” to be presented as a world-premiere performance by Ars Musica on June 8 as part of Stravinsky & Bruckner: A Masterworks Concert. This is your chance to play an active role in the career of an exciting contemporary composer. More
