On Sunday, Sept. 23rd,
the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra (where I am Composer-in-Residence) and Prairie Fruits Farm & Creamery co-sponsored
a Gelato Social. It was, quite literally, picture perfect! We had blue skies
above us, a modestly warm temperature with a gentle breeze… with homemade
gelato, live music, and cute goats, who could ask for more?
Our event got underway at 2 PM with Leslie Cooperband, co-owner of
PFFC, scooping up fresh gelato for our guests. As PFFC makes all of their own
gelato, we were treated to a range of intriguing flavors including salted
caramel, honey lavender (harvested from their own garden), and a delicious pear
sorbetto (harvested from their orchard).
People wandered around the farm for a bit, visiting with the goats
and admiring the herb and flower gardens, before finding seats in the pavilion
for our 2:30 PM performance. We had about 80 people in the audience, but you’d
never have known it – they were serenely quiet throughout the event.
CUSO’s 2018-2019 theme
is “Our World, Our Music,” and the music I chose for the Gelato Social fits
perfectly with this earth-inspired theme. CUSO flutist Amanda Pond began the
concert with my Phoenix Rising, which tells the tale of the old
phoenix who perishes on a bed of flames and bursts forth as a young, spry
phoenix. This story of rebirth, and renewal was an apt piece to tell in
the middle of lush farmland that seasonally goes through its own process
of renewal. Between works, PFFC co-owner Wes Jarrell spoke about how he and
Leslie began raising goats in 2004, which led to their interest in making
cheese and eventually gelato. He also talked about their farm’s sustainability
efforts. The short concert concluded with my String Quartet No. 3: Gaia.
CUSO musicians Maria Arrua, Aaron Jacobs, Robin Kearton, and Barbara Hedlund
performed movement 2 (Creation of Mother Earth) and movement 5 (…et in terra
pax); maestro Matthew Sheppard conducted the quartet for this
performance.
We then took a break from music-making for about a half hour.
Leslie served up more gelato while Wes brought out a goat to take pictures with
musicians and guests. We had also set up tables for our ongoing “Messages to
Gaia” art & poetry project, in which we invited our audiences to create
artwork or write short messages/poetry inspired by our planet.
Several audience
members migrated over to the "Messages to Gaia" art tables to leave their contributions. I’ll write a
blog post about the “Messages to Gaia” in November, sharing pictures of what
our participants have left as messages to the planet.
We gave another short chamber concert at 3:30 PM. The CUSO string
musicians played movement 3 (Dance of the Earth) of my String Quartet No.
3: Gaia,
and Amanda reprised her performance of Phoenix Rising. This was a wonderful way to wrap
up a completely splendid afternoon of music-making on a goat farm!
There is one more detail to mention – Executive Director Gerri
Kirchner made beautiful posters featuring several of my earth-themed texts that
I set to music in Terra Nostra, my oratorio. These posters included
texts written by Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Percy Bysshe
Shelley. We attached the posters to several of the pavilion’s wooden posts, so
people could read the poetry at their leisure. This was a very nice roll-out in
getting people excited about CUSO’s upcoming March 9, 2019 performance of Terra Nostra at Krannert Center with
the University of Illinois Oratorio Society, Central Illinois Children’s
Chorus, and soloists.
Thank you everyone who came out and spent this special
afternoon with us! Thank you as well to Wes Jarrell, Leslie Cooperband, Gerri
Kirchner, Alex McHattie, and the CUSO musicians for all of their work in making
our event a wonderful success, as well as to our event photographer, Darrell Hoemann. We
hope you enjoyed the merging of music, gelato, and goats as much as we did!
Enjoy a few more pictures from our event below.
