The Esoterics present Excelsis: Contemplating extremity
$22 in advance ($15 students/seniors)
Kevin Puts — If I were a swan
Paul Rudoi — Spheres of Influence
Kala Pierson — Flung open
Andrea Clearfield — Khandroma
Kevin Puts – To touch the sky
Kevin Puts – If I were a swan
Paul John Rudoi – Spheres of Influence
Kala Pierson – Flung open (world premiere commission)
Andrea Clearfield – Khandroma (world premiere commission)
In the final concert of its 24th season, The Esoterics will cast our choral gaze upward, to consider the forces that propel us to greater heights of consciousness. This December, we welcome the transforming embrace of the celestial feminine in the songs of EXCELSIS.
The ensemble is excited to welcome two Philadelphia composers who have written works that will receive their world premieres in EXCELSIS. Kala Pierson composed Flung open, setting a poem of her own creation, earlier this year while on a residency at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. Andrea Clearfield’s Khandroma sets a Tibetan poem by Sienna Craig that honors the dakini, the ancient Buddhist spirits that dance across the sky. In addition, the group will perform Paul John Rudoi’s Spheres of influence, setting poems by Tim Togeas and Sara Dailey about the astronomical forces that we find within each of us.
The centerpiece of EXCELSIS will be To touch the sky by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts. This nine-movement compendium of celestial feminine poetry includes texts by Sappho, Mirabai, Hildegard of Bingen, Amy Lowell, Emily Brontë, Edna St Vincent Millay, Christina Rossetti, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Marie Howe. As a prelude to this cycle, the group will also perform If I were a swan, Puts’ elegant rendering of a poem by Fleda Brown.