January 2019
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Michael-Thomas Foumai’s “The Telling Rooms”
The Portland Symphony Orchestra will present the world premiere of a piece commissioned by the orchestra and titled The Telling Rooms, written by Michael-Thomas Foumai, on Sunday, January 27 at 2 p.m. The concert will be repeated on Tuesday, January 29 at 7:30 p.m. Foumai is a leading contemporary composer known for composing works inspired by film, art, literature, poetry… Read More
The Telling Rooms Movement I
The Happiest Color The Happiest Color Aubrey Duplissie It was the jacket That defended the boy From cascading rain, while Mother observed from foggy windows It coated the bus He rode for the first time While his parents watched, Hand in hand It was there on sweltering summer days, Within… Read More
The Telling Rooms Movement II
Dressed In Red Dressed in Red Husna Quinn The tapping of her scarlet pin heels fills the family room. Her radiant red dress illuminates the faded gray shapes of objects surrounding her. My gaze from just outside the door follows her coal black eyes. Glimpsing at the art attached to the… Read More
The Telling Rooms Movement III
Ink Wash Ink Wash Eliza Rudalevige She knew how every color tasted and blue was her favorite. Blues like moistly misty mornings, mosquitos dancing in a haze of left-over campfire and condensation. Blue settled softly over sloped tents then fading into husky, grass-fed violet the same color as lavender fields at dawn … Read More
Jaime Laredo Program Notes
Johann Sebastian Bach Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in A minor, BWV 1041 J.S. Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685 and died in Leipzig in 1750. He likely composed this work between 1717 and 1723, although some scholars think it came a few years later. The circumstances of its first performance are unknown…. Read More