Mortal Sphere
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Friday, November 13, 2015
Beall Hall, University of Oregon
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Laura Wayte, soprano
Idit Shner, saxophone
Nathalie Fortin, piano
Lillian Almeida, artist
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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.