Mortal Sphere

Friday, November 13, 2015

Beall Hall, University of Oregon

Laura Wayte, soprano

Idit Shner, saxophone

Nathalie Fortin, piano

Lillian Almeida, artist

Ten Blake Songs Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

William Blake (1757-1827)

Infant Joy

A Poison Tree

The Piper

The Lamb

The Shepherd

Ah! Sun-flower

Cruelty has a Human Heart

The Divine Image

Eternity

I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY

Ellwood Derr (1932-2008)

Song cycle for soprano voice, alto saxophone and piano. On the poems by children who were incarcerated in the Nazi ghetto for Jews in Terezín, Czechoslovakia (1942-1944) and who died in Auschwitz before the end of October 1944.

Prologue: Terezín (Theresienstadt)

The Butterfly

The Old Man

Fear

The Garden

Knoxville: Summer of 1915 Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

James Agee (1909-1955)

Figures from an Opera: An Installation for Stage

by Lillian Almeida

Created for Mortal Sphere, a recital by Soprano Laura Decher Wayte

Dedicated to my mother, Mary F. McKinstry 1931 - 2014

Backdrop painting: 36’ x 25’, Six panels. Plastic mesh, latex paint, wood, glue and hanging hardware. Forms designed to echo the painting “Paper Horses” from the Figures from an Opera series.

Floating silhouettes: Nine figures, approx. 20’ ea. Wire sheathed in rubber, and plastic tubing, clear monofilament, hanging hardware, metal conduit, spray paint.

Light and shadows (primarily during Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer 1915): effects created by Bob Durnell, using a minimal system of two lighting trees.