(Above: Conductor Diane Retallack is founder and artistic director of Eugene Vocal Arts and the Eugene Concert Choir)
By Randi Bjornstad
The Eugene Vocal Arts concerts on April 7 and 12, titled The Peace of Wild Things, pay homage to Earth Day and the need both to celebrate and preserve the planet for future generations.
The name of the concert refers to a poem of the same name by Wendell Berry that has been set to music by Portland composer Joan Szymko. A performance of that work opens the show.
Next up is a performance of Come to the Woods by Jake Runestad, in a paean to the writings of naturalist and eco-philosopher John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. The piece evokes a sunshiny day in a pine forest that evolves into an exuberant storm which then subsides into the peace and awe of a glorious sunset.
On a lighter note, the choral group then turns to Ogden Nash’s Animal Crackers, a hilarious poem set to music by Eric Whitacre, followed by Pacific Northwest composer Morten Lauridsen’s musical rendition of poet James Agee’s,Sure On This Shining Night.
The mood changes again with a rhythmic rendition of a Native American text from the Algonquin nation, called We Are the Stars, set to music by James Eakin III, followed by Abide, a full-bodied choral piece by Dan Forrest that uses the text of a poem by Jake Adam York to marvel at the beauty, complexity and very existence of the natural world.
And that’s just the first half of the program.
The second act begins with Louis Armstrong’s rich jazz version of What a Wonderful World, followed by a tear-inducing rendition of There Will Come Soft Rains, about nature’s reclaiming of a battlefield where soldiers lost their lives, via a poem by Sara Teasdale to music by Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds.
Then it’s back to Eric Whitacre with Cloudburst, expressed onstage through sound effects that include thunderclaps and pelting rain, lightening up again in the aftermath of the storm with Over the Rainbow, complete with ukulele accompaniment.
The concert ends with an energetic singing of Toto’s Africa, with its famously repeated refrain, “I bless the rains down in Africa.”
The Peace of Wild Things
When: 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 7 and 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 12
Where: On Sunday at the Wildish Community Theater, 630 Main St., Springfield; on Friday at Beall Concert Hall on the University of Oregon campus at 961 E. 18th Ave., Eugene
Tickets: $30 for adults, $10 for students and youths; available online at EugeneConcertChoir.org; tickets for the Springfield concert also are available through the Wildish Theater ticket office, 541-953-9204; tickets for the Eugene concert also are available through the Hult Center box office, 541-682-5000
