{"id":1135,"date":"2019-07-17T18:19:16","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcsu.wpengine.com\/news-archives\/wrensong\/"},"modified":"2019-07-17T18:19:16","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:19:16","slug":"wrensong","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wrensong\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 WCSU professor’s song cycle to premiere in performance Oct. 15"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DANBURY, CONN. <\/strong>\u2014 Inspired by the planned visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Western Connecticut State University, WCSU Professor of Music Eric Lewis<\/a> has embarked over the past six months on a quest for the place where poetry and music converge in a song of compassionate humanity. Lewis will share the fruits of his discovery in the premiere performance of his original composition, the \u201cWrensong\u201d cycle, in a chamber music concert at the university on Monday, Oct. 15<\/strong>, 2012<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWorld Music\u201d will be the theme for the concert at 8 p.m. in Ives Concert Hall in White Hall on the university\u2019s Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. Admission will be free and the public is invited to attend; donations to support the WCSU department of music will be accepted.<\/p>\n

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Soprano Jennifer Caraluzzi<\/a>, graduate of WCSU and the New England Conservatory (NEC) and cast member in this summer\u2019s production by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, will perform as lead vocalist for the \u201cWrensong\u201d cycle with a chamber music ensemble of string, wind, piano and percussion instrumentalists. The six-song cycle features Lewis\u2019s musical score and lyrics drawn from the poetry of the late Raphaela Willington. The cycle, commissioned by The Judy Willington Trust, distills and sets to music six poems selected by Lewis from a collection of Willington poems titled \u201cElegy\u201d soon to be published by Unbound Content LLC.<\/p>\n

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The concert will open with a movement from Gareth Farr\u2019s \u201cKembang Suling: Musical Snapshots of Asia\u201d performed by WCSU Professors of Music Dr. Kerry Walker on flute and David Smith on marimba, followed by the band Timbila performing original arrangements of African music played on traditional and Western instruments. The concert will conclude with performance of Dvorak\u2019s \u201cThe American\u201d Piano Quintet by the Prometheus chamber music ensemble. <\/p>\n

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WCSU Adjunct Professor of Music Dirck Westervelt, bass player for Timbila<\/a>, noted the band has drawn inspiration from studies and collaboration with Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo and his band The Blacks Unlimited, who have pioneered adaptation of traditional African music for Western instruments. Timbila\u2019s repertoire features melodic vocals and intricate interplay of guitar, bass and percussion with southern African instruments such as the mbira, a Shona thumb piano, and timbila, a type of xylophone.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe music ranges from hypnotic and lulling mbira songs to highly energetic timbila boogie,\u201d Westervelt explained. \u201cEver since the band\u2019s founders \u2014 songwriter and mbira\/timbila player Nora Balaban and guitarist Banning Eyre \u2014 met in Zimbabwe in 1997, they have been adapting these traditions to create contemporary songs deeply based in tradition, but also informed by their backgrounds in folk, rock, jazz and other kinds of African music.\u201d Balaban, Eyre and Westervelt will be joined by percussionist Madeline Yayodele Nelson, founder of the group Women of the Calabash, in performance of a set of songs set to original arrangements of mbira pieces from Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

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Lewis first made the musical connection to Willington\u2019s poetry with encouragement from Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor and WCSU Professor of Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process Dr. John Briggs, a friend and literary colleague of Willington prior to her death in 2004. Briggs and Lewis, in collaboration with representatives of the Do Ngak Kunphen Ling (Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace) in Redding, put forward the initial proposal for His Holiness the Dalai Lama\u2019s visit to Danbury and have sought to promote cultural programs on campus and in the community celebrating the historic event. Once he began to immerse himself in Willington\u2019s poetry and learn about her personal journey, Lewis said, he gained a deepening appreciation for the empathy and compassion expressed in her work \u2014 themes in harmony with the Dalai Lama\u2019s spiritual message.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWillington\u2019s life story is very spiritually charged,\u201d he observed. \u201cWhen she wrote these poems, she was suffering in many ways: Her parents had died several years earlier in a terrible accident, and she was suffering from ovarian cancer. I could hear very clearly the music in her words: life in nature, memories of her parents, her own dreams, and the revelations of her Buddhist faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Even as he set to work on the composition, Lewis already had decided to ask Caraluzzi, currently an instructor at NEC in Boston, to return to Western to take on the challenge of the premiere performance. In fact, he had sought an opportunity to write a song cycle for Caraluzzi since he heard her senior recital performance in 2010 of songs inspired by the poetry of Stephane Mallarme.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Willington poems seemed the perfect fit for Jennifer\u2019s amazing voice \u2014 a high, coloratura soprano of unique sensitivity,\u201d he said. \u201cShe has the voice of great compassion and empathy.\u201d Caraluzzi\u2019s performance of lyrics inspired by Willington\u2019s poetry \u201cwill bring together two women of great talent from different generations who have become the muses for my music.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Lewis\u2019s cycle progresses through six songs inspired by Willington\u2019s experience of the natural world, her spiritual reflections, and her observations on the human condition. The cycle begins with \u201cEpitaph for Ashes,\u201d and continues through \u201cLike an Animal,\u201d \u201cSometimes You Wake\u201d and the title piece \u201cWrensong.\u201d Lewis observed that his musical score seeks to capture the varied themes of the poetry, from the reflective call to compassion of \u201cEpitaph\u201d to the rich instrumental tone of \u201cAnimal\u201d and the progression from dreamlike state to consciousness in \u201cSometimes You Wake.\u201d Sounds of the natural world figure prominently in the song cycle, as in music recalling the singing of wrens each morning in their flower box nest outside Willington\u2019s window.<\/p>\n

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\u201c\u2019Wrensong\u2019 emerges from sleep and has bird song enter our thoughts, discussing the day,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cIt\u2019s really about birds from their point of view, communicating with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The fifth song in the cycle, \u201cMemory,\u201d draws its inspiration from a poem that seeks remembrance and order amid a cacophony of thoughts, reflected in dissonant but colorful clusters of chords and use of Caraluzzi\u2019s soprano timber in humming that blends with the instrumental music. The cycle concludes with \u201cThe Revelation,\u201d a song in which the poet faces her own mortality and discovers new revelations about her life and her world.<\/p>\n

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The conclusion holds special resonance for Lewis, who suffered a heart attack early this year that brought him to reevaluate his artistic work and take new directions.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou instantly become mortal \u2014 and that\u2019s quite a good thing,\u201d he recalled of his illness. \u201cIt spurred me to action, to rediscover my persona as a composer, which I had put aside for so many years.\u201d After focusing for more than four decades on his artistic career as a violinist and chamber music performer with the Manhattan String Quartet and currently Prometheus, he said, \u201cI need to start setting down my musical ideas on paper. I want my music to be accessible so that people can be moved by it. I want people to relax into the music and hear it for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lewis said his approach to music composition has been revitalized by the teachings of the Dalai Lama, especially in his recent work \u201cBeyond Religion.\u201d In this book, he observed, His Holiness \u201cdispels much of the cynicism I had found in the intellectual and complicated music theory of the 20th century. That has made me a seeker of a new way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat would please me most\u201d at the premiere of the \u201cWrensong\u201d cycle, Lewis remarked, \u201cis that the listeners feel connected to the performers on stage, using my vehicle to make them aware of their human side, sharing the same emotions and responding in the same ways. This piece is all about compassion for someone who is suffering and, through that suffering, finding our own human limits and possibilities. That\u2019s what I want them to take away from this: They should be nourished by their humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For more information, contact the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.<\/p>\n

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