SYLVANA: Music of the forests, flowers, and trees
$10-$20
Stephen Chatman — Due North
Heinrich Poos — Sphragis
Lars Johan Werle — trees
Eric Banks — Twelve Flowers
Greg Bartholomew — Selected works
THE ESOTERICS goes deep into the woods to present its next choral ecology, SYLVANA.
In Sphragis [The seal] by the German composer Heinrich Poos, we hear Ovid’s account of the mourning forest after the death of Orpheus, and celebrate the reunion with his beloved Eurydice. In trees, by the Swede Lars-Johan Werle, we witness the majesty and whimsy of e. e. cummings’ inimitable poem. With the Canadian Stephen Chatman, we head Due north, into a choral universe evoked by his titles: mountains, trees, woodpecker, varied thrushes, and mosquitoes. With Founding Director Eric Banks, we meditate on Twelve flowers, setting haiku by Yosa Buson that follow the different blooms through the months of the year. Seattle composer Greg Bartholomew provides yet another devotion in his setting of Jones Very’s profound poem The tree; and Maurice Ravel’s Trois chansons [Three songs] retell the tale of Nicolette (Little Red Riding Hood gone awry), pay homage to three wistful birds of paradise, and give a frenzied warning to the children of Ormonde: avoid the fierce monsters in the forest!