Voices of Change presents Sounds from the Southwest, an evening featuring composers inspired by the rich culture of the American Southwest. Included are works by Jerod Tate, Dan Welcher, Anne Strickland, Jason Ballmann, and Ellen Seldin.
Program:
- Anne Strickland: Invisible Ink (2008) *Commissioned by VOC; World Premiere
- Dan Welcher: Dante Dances (Danzi d’Inferno) (1995)
- Jason Ballman: The Lake (2007)
- Ellen Seldin: Futility (2008)
- Jerod Tate: Dream World (1997)
Award-winning American Indian composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate derives the theme for his composition Dream World from Salish Indian melodies. A citizen of the Chickasaw nation, Tate is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. In 2008, he was appointed Cultural Ambassador for the State of Oklahoma. Tate has received numerous commissions and awards.
Another highlight on the program is ¬Dante Dances by Dan Welcher, nationally known composer who is the Lee Hage Jamail Regents Professorship in Composition at the University of Texas at Austin and the director of the New Music Ensemble at UT. Reviews of Dante Dances suggest a piece for clarinet and piano combining humor with expert craftsmanship.
A world premiere, Invisible Ink, by award-winning composer Anne Strickland (formerly at SMU and now at Baylor University) takes a French combination of instruments – a woodwind trio of flute, clarinet, and bassoon – and creates a piece which has jazz at its heart. According to Strickland, “After the recent passing of my elderly grandfather and grandmother, I came across their oldest photograph album. In most of the scenes my grandparents were the age that I am now. I saw their stories – stories written in invisible ink – through the lens of my own experiences and these movements emerged as musical snapshots of two lives well lived.”
Dallas composers featured on this concert are Jason Ballmann, winner of the 2007 VOC/DSO Young Composers Project High School Division, now studying at SMU, and Ellen Seldin, also at SMU. Ballmann’s piece, The Lake, for vocal quartet and vibraphone, is based loosely on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Throughout The Lake three main feelings stand above all: Love, Terror and Loneliness. These feelings serve as the structure of the piece. Seldin’s Futility for vocal quartet and piano is based on a poem by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, a British poet and soldier, regarded by many as the leading poet of the First World War.
What: Sounds of the Southwest
When: November 16, 2008 at 7:30PM. A pre-concert forum with Laurie Shulman will be held at 6:30 PM.
Location: Lake Highlands Presbyterian Church
8525 Audelia, Dallas, TX 75238
Admission:
- $25.00 – Adults
- $10.00 – Students
