The Valleys: The atlas of the way
$20 ($15 student/senior)
In The Valleys, The Esoterics is excited to present a world-premiere commission by Forrest Farhad Pierce: The atlas of the way. Originally from the Columbia Plateau of Washington state, Pierce is now Professor of Composition at the University of Kansas, a member of the faculty of the Cortona Sessions for New Music, a wayfarer of both mountains and valleys, and a teacher of Sufism in the Inayati tradition. Pierce writes music of meditative stillness and ecstatic virtuosity that is rooted in a deep connection to the natural world.
In his Atlas, Pierce has created a concert-length a cappella choral work based on the epic Sufi poem, Mantiq ut-Tair ("The conference of the birds"), by Farid ud-Din Attar (1145-1221). As both poet and composer, Pierce has distilled nearly five thousand couplets of this ancient poem into a nine-movement work, with eight interludes (called sohbets). Pierce's piece describes the journey of a gathering of curious birds who are led by their teacher – the hoopoe – to learn of their own origin. Through this vast landscape, the birds traverse seven evocatively-named valleys – of farawayfaring, lovestruckness, kenning, enoughing, onement, wonderstruckness, and noughtness – each representing a Sufi maqam, or spiritual station of progress. Between each musical valley, Pierce's interstitial sohbets capture quiet, intimate conversations between student and teacher in which they reflect on this spiritual journey.
Forrest began composing The atlas of the way before the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and The Esoterics is finally able to welcome him to Seattle and Tacoma for the weekend of his world premiere! We hope that you can join us (and him) for this fantastic concert!