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The Greatest Personal Privation April 2023 (7 × 5 in) (Website Poster) (1640 × 924 px) (1)
APRIL 2023
THE GREATEST PERSONAL PRIVATION

Join us for the premiere of The Greatest Personal Privation! This work was commissioned by Aural Compass Projects and written by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith, who also served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019 and composer Jasmine Barnes.

This piece was originally slated to be on our season last year, but due to various pandemic-related delays, the performance had to be postponed. We are now ready to present The Greatest Personal Privation in April 2023.

Key’mon Murrah, countertenor and Donald Allen Lee III, pianist will join together to bring this collaboration to life.

In addition to this premiere, we will also be presenting another work by Barnes entitled Might Call You Art for soprano and string quartet. Soprano Chabrelle Williams, who gave the world premiere of this piece, will be joined by the Bismuth Quartet. This will be the second performance of this piece.
Juan Calderon: Six Songs for Soprano and Guitar | Emerging Composer Competition (2020) Winner
17:08

Juan Calderon: Six Songs for Soprano and Guitar | Emerging Composer Competition (2020) Winner

"I discovered Octavio Gamboa when I read his poem “El Paisaje” amidst other Colombian poets in a collection while I was living in Miami in 2006. I found his poetry very musical and suitable for singing. In 2014, guitarist Nilko Andreas asked me for a song for soprano and guitar, so I set the one poem I had to music. The project did not pan out but in December 2017 I had the opportunity to record the music I had written in Bogotá with local performers. As talk usually goes among musicians, the idea for a song cycle was brought up and I thought it was something worth pursuing. The writing process brought me to use various ideas for solo guitar I had shelved out over the past few years and to bring new ones which fit the character and imagery of a particular poem. Finding published books or manuscripts of his poems proved fruitless, even though there is a park named after him in my hometown. In the end, I found a website done by his family which contained some of his most popular poems along with helpful biographical notes. It turned out that he was a huge fan of classical music, especially Beethoven. In the end it seems we had a spiritual connection through art." - Juan Calderon, composer Performed at New Works, New Voices on October 29, 2021 at Opera America in NYC Aural Compass Projects Vanessa Becerra, soprano Juan Calderon, guitar 0:00 I. El Paisaje 2:39 II. Si tu me lo preguntas 5:26 III. Para vencer la soledad 8:42 IV. Futuro 10:45 V. Final 14:03 VI. Con el silencio estoy en harmonia
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