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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Kyr: A Time for Life

04/19/2015 1:00 pm
04/19/2015 4:30 pm

 

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host, Keith Brown, writes:

International Earth Day falls on this coming Wednesday the 22nd. In anticipation of the special day devoted to environmental concerns, I'm proud to present A Time for Life: An Environmental Oratorio (2007) by American composer Robert Kyr (b. 1952). This Earth oratorio was inspired by the initiatives of Bartholomew, the Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church. He has made the preservation of all the teeming lifeforms on our planet his holy cause. The composition itself was commissioned by the Cappella Romana, a vocal ensemble based in the Pacific Northwest (Portland/Seattle).

This is a choral work on an intimate, chamber scale. The eight voices of the Cappella are joined by the three string players of Third Angle New Music. For his text Kyr took passages from the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, the Orthodox liturgy and the sayings of Native American peoples, to which he added his own lyrics, More than any other musical artwork of our time, A Time for Life should remind us of the importance of the issue of climate change. The Cappella Romana released its world premiere recording of Kyr's oratorio under its own label on a single CD.