Program - The Brightness of Light featuring Renée Fleming – Colorado Premiere

2019/20 SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR:

SPOTLIGHT

2019/20

RENÉE FLEMING – THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT – COLORADO PREMIERE PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY BRETT MITCHELL, conductor RENÉE FLEMING, soprano ROD GILFRY, baritone ANNE PENNER, actor GARETH SAXE, actor Friday, November 15, 2019 at 7:30pm Sunday, November 17, 2019 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall

SCHOENBERG

Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 — INTERMISSION —

KEVIN PUTS

The Brightness of Light

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 35 MINUTES WITH A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.

FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 8 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT!

Friday’s Concert is Gratefully Dedicated to Mr. John F. Estes, III and Mrs. Norma Horner

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM 1

SPOTLIGHT WELCOME PHOTO: ROGER MASTROIANNI

BRETT MITCHELL, conductor Hailed for delivering compelling performances of innovative, eclectic programs, Brett Mitchell was named the fourth Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in September 2016. He served as the orchestra’s Music Director Designate during the 16/17 season and began his four year appointment in September 2017.

Mr. Mitchell concluded his tenure as the Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra in August 2017. He joined the orchestra as Assistant Conductor in 2013 and was promoted to Associate in 2015, becoming the orchestra’s first Associate Conductor in over three decades and only the fifth in its 98 year history.

In this role, he led the orchestra in several dozen concerts each season at Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, and on tour. Mr. Mitchell also served as the Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO), which he recently led on a four-city tour of China, marking the ensemble’s second international tour and its first to Asia. In May, 2019 he returned to the Cleveland Orchestra to lead subscription performances of An American in Paris.

In addition to his work in Cleveland and Denver, Brett Mitchell is in consistent demand as a guest conductor. Recent and upcoming guest engagements include subscription debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Dallas, San Antonio, Vancouver and New Zealand symphonies and the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, as well as debuts with the Grant Park Music Festival in downtown Chicago and the Indianapolis Symphony during the orchestra’s summer festival at Conner Prairie. He has also appeared with the Detroit, National, Houston, Milwaukee and Oregon symphonies, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra among others.

From 2007 to 2011, Brett Mitchell led over one hundred performances as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony. He also held Assistant Conductor posts with the Orchestre National de France, where he worked under Kurt Masur from 2006 to 2009, and the Castleton Festival, where he worked under Lorin Maazel in 2009 and 2010. In 2015, Mr. Mitchell completed a highly successful five-year tenure as Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, where an increased focus on locally relevant programming and community collaborations resulted in record attendance throughout his tenure.

Born in Seattle in 1979, Brett Mitchell holds degrees in conducting from the University of Texas in Austin and composition from Western Washington University, which selected him as its 2014 Young Alumnus of the Year. He studied at the National Conducting Institute and was selected

by Kurt Masur as a recipient of the inaugural American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation Scholarship. Mr. Mitchell was also one of five recipients of the League of American Orchestras’ American Conducting Fellowship Program from 2007 to 2010.

PROGRAM 2

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES

PHOTO: ANDREW ECCLES

RENÉE FLEMING, soprano Renée Fleming is one of the most acclaimed singers of our time. Awarded the United States’ highest honor for an artist, the National Medal of Arts, she brought her voice to a vast new audience in 2014, as the only classical artist ever to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. Winner of four Grammy Awards for Best Classical Vocal Solo, Renée has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

In 2008 Renée became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala.

Renée’s schedule this season includes concerts in New York, Boston, Vienna, Paris, Hong Kong, and Beijing. This summer, she performed the world premieres of André Previn’s Penelope and Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light at the Tanglewood Music Festival. In June, she made her London musical theater debut in The Light in the Piazza at Royal Festival Hall, with engagements in Los Angeles in October, and coming up in December at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House. Last spring, Renée performed opposite actor Ben Whishaw in Norma Jeane Baker of Troy to open The Shed, a major new arts center in New York City. She earned a Tony Award nomination for her performance in the 2018 Broadway production of Carousel. She is heard on the soundtrack of the 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner The Shape of Water, and she provided the singing voice of Roxane, played by Julianne Moore, in the film of the best-selling novel Bel Canto.

Renée’s new album, Lieder: Brahms, Schumann, and Mahler, was released by Decca in June. She has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock and jazz; and her album Signatures was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry, as an “aural treasure worthy of preservation as part of America’s patrimony.” Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, Renée has sung not only with Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, but also with Elton John, Sting, Josh Groban, and Joan Baez. She has hosted an array of television and radio broadcasts, including the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series, and Live from Lincoln Center.

As Artistic Advisor to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Renée launched a collaboration with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, with participation by the National Endowment of the Arts, focused on the science connecting music, health, and the brain. Over the past year, she has given more than 20 presentations with scientists and practitioners around the world on this subject. In 2010, Renée was named the first-ever Creative Consultant at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall, the Board of Sing for Hope, and she is a spokesperson for the American Musical Therapy Association. Among her awards are the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. www.reneefleming.com

SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM 3

SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES ROD GILFRY, baritone American baritone Rod Gilfry, two-time Grammy award nominee, singer and actor, has performed in all of the world’s music capitals. His most recent Grammy award nomination was for his performance in the title role of Messiaen’s monumental opera Saint François d’Assise in Amsterdam.

Best-known as an opera singer, he is also an acclaimed recitalist and concert artist, and appears frequently in musical theater classics. His discography of 28 audio and video recordings includes the DVD and CD of his one-man show My Heart is So Full of You. His radio program, Opera Notes on Air, aired on K-Mozart 105.1 FM in Los Angeles for over three years. With a 77-role repertoire, Mr. Gilfry sings music from the Baroque to that composed expressly for him. He was brought to worldwide attention when he created the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1998 premiere of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera, opposite Renée Fleming. Other world premieres include Nicholas in Deborah Drattel’s Nicholas and Alexandra (Los Angeles, opposite Placido Domingo); Nathan in Nicholas Maw’s Sophie’s Choice (London, Washington D.C.); Jack London in Libby Larsen’s Every Man Jack (Sonoma, CA); Edward Gaines in Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner (Detroit, Cincinnati, Philadelphia); the title role in MarcAndré Dalbavie’s Gesualdo (Zurich); and Master Chen in Christian Jost’s Die Rote Laterne (Zurich).

Most recently, he originated the role of Walt Whitman in Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing in Boston, Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet with Glyndebourne Festival, Mr. Potter in Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life in Houston, and David Lang’s the loser in New York City.

In the 2019-2020 season, Mr. Gilfry will perform the Father in the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice at Los Angeles Opera. In concert, he will perform as Alfred Stieglitz in Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light opposite Renée Fleming with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by music director Gianandrea Noseda, as well as with the Colorado Symphony.

He will also sing Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, give a concert at Old Dominion University with the Norfolk Chamber Consort, and perform a solo recital at Messiah College with pianist Peter Walsh.

In the 2018-2019 season, Mr. Gilfry sang Prospero in Katie Mitchell’s production of Miranda with the Opéra Comique on tour at the Opéra National de Bordeaux and Théâtre de Caen. He also reprised the role of Henry Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life at San Francisco Opera, sang Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at Santa Fe Opera conducted by Harry Bicket and the same role at Korea National Opera, and performed the loser at Los Angeles Opera. In concert, Mr. Gilfry performed the world premiere of the expansion of The Brightness of Light at the Tanglewood Festival, a selection of songs by Cole Porter with the New York Philharmonic in Vail, Colorado, Mozart’s Requiem and Kirchner’s Songs of Ascent with the Los Angeles Chorale, Aucoin’s Crossing Suite and Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen with the San Diego Symphony, and excerpts from Crossing at the American Civil War Museum with Aucoin at the piano.

In addition to his full-time performance schedule, Mr. Gilfry is an Associate Professor of Vocal Arts at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.

PROGRAM 4

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951): Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) for String Orchestra, Op. 4 Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874 in Vienna and died on July 13, 1951 in Brentwood, California. Verklärte Nacht was composed for string sextet in 1899, scored for string orchestra in 1917, and revised in 1943. The Sextet was premiered on March 15, 1902 in Vienna; the orchestral version premiered on June 3, 1919 in Vienna, conducted by the composer. Duration is about 30 minutes. The piece was last performed by the orchestra on April 11-13, 2015, with Douglas Boyd on the podium.

At the age of sixteen, in 1890, Arnold Schoenberg decided to become a professional musician, having already dabbled in composition, taught himself to play the violin and cello, and participated in some chamber music concerts with his friends. His father’s death just at that time threw him into rather serious financial distress, however, and he had to scratch out a livelihood after leaving school in 1891 by working in a bank and conducting local choruses and theater orchestras for a few schillings per performance. In 1893, he met Alexander Zemlinsky, who had already established a Viennese reputation as a composer, conductor, and teacher though he was only two years Schoenberg’s senior. Schoenberg showed his new friend some of his manuscripts and Zemlinsky was so impressed with his talent that he offered to take him on as a counterpoint student (that instruction turned out to be Schoenberg’s only formal study), and secured him a position in the cello section of the Polyhymnia Orchestra to help earn a little money. Zemlinsky assumed the role of guardian to Schoenberg, introducing the young musician to his circle of professional colleagues and constantly offering advice and encouragement. In 1901, Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister, Mathilde.

During the summer of 1899, Schoenberg and Zemlinsky were on holiday in the mountain village of Payerbach, south of Vienna, and it was there that Schoenberg began a work for string sextet based on a poem by Richard Dehmel: Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), which had appeared three years earlier in a collection called Weib und die Welt (Woman and the World).

(Schoenberg was familiar with Dehmel’s work by at least 1897, since he set several of the poet’s verses that year.) Dehmel was one of the most distinguished German poets of the day, whose verses bridged the sensuous Impressionism of the preceding generation and the intense spirituality of encroaching Expressionism. Verklärte Nacht matches well the Viennese fin-de-siècle temperament, when Sigmund Freud was intellectualizing sex with his systematic explorations into the subconscious and Gustav Klimt was painting full-length portraits of his female subjects as he imagined they would look totally nude before applying layers of elaborate, gold-sparkled costumes to finish the canvas.

The following excerpt from Dehmel’s poem appears in Schoenberg’s printed score: “Two people walk through the bare, cold woods; the moon runs along, they gaze at it. The moon runs over tall oaks, no cloudlet dulls the heavenly light into which the black peaks reach.

A woman’s voice speaks: “‘I bear a child, but not by you. I walk in sin alongside you. I sinned against myself mightily. I believed no longer in good fortune but still had mighty longing for a full life, mother’s joy and duty; then I grew shameless, then horror-stricken, I let my sex be taken by a stranger and even blessed myself for it. Now life has taken its revenge: Now I have met you, you.’

SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM 5

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES “She walks with clumsy gait. She gazes upward; the moon runs along. Her somber glance drowns in the light. A man’s voice speaks: “‘The child that you conceived be to your soul no burden. Oh look, how clear the universe glitters! There is a glory around All, you drift with me on a cold sea, but a peculiar warmth sparkles from you in me, from me in you. It will transfigure the strange child you will bear for me, from me; you brought the glory into me, you made myself into a child.’

“He holds her around her strong hips. Their breath kisses in the air. Two people walk through the high, light night.”

Schoenberg glossed this richly emotional poem with music influenced by Wagner’s lush Tristan chromaticism, Brahms’ intellectual rigor and the intense expression of Romanticism to create a vast one-movement piece for strings that is virtually a programmatic tone poem, one of the few such specimens in the chamber music literature. When the work was completed in December, Zemlinsky urged the Tonkünstler Society of Vienna to produce the first performance, “but,” he recorded in his memoirs, “I had no luck. The piece was given ‘a trial’ and the result was absolutely negative. One member of the jury gave his judgment in these words: ‘Why, that sounds as if someone had smudged up the score of Tristan while the ink was still wet!’” The official reason the committee gave for rejecting the score was a single harmony in the closing measures that it could not find in any textbook. However, the Berlin publisher Dreilinien thought highly enough of Verklärte Nacht to print it immediately in 1899, thus making it the earliest of Schoenberg’s published works. The work was finally presented on March 15, 1902 when the augmented Arnold Rosé Quartet premiered it under the auspices of the Tonkünstler Society (!).

Schoenberg had already acquired a reputation as an unrepentant modernist, and the audience insisted on being put off by the music’s ripe harmony and the lubricity of its subject. The Hungarian violinist Francis Aranyi reported that the premiere was greeted “with much blowing of whistles, heaving of rotten eggs, etc.,” but that Rosé valiantly took his bows at the end “just as all hell broke loose.” Over a number of years, however, Verklärte Nacht came to be viewed not as an avant-garde aberration but as one of the foremost creations of the Post-Romantic era.

When Dehmel first heard the work, in 1912 in Hamburg, he wrote Schoenberg a letter full of congratulations that ended with the lines: O glorious sound! my words now ring, in tones to God re-echoing; To you this highest joy I owe; On earth no higher may we know. ©2019 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

 PROGRAM 6

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES TRANSFIGURED NIGHT

By Richard Dehmel Translated by Brett Mitchell

VERKLÄRTE NACHT

By Richard Dehmel

[NARRATOR] Two people walk through a cold, bare wood; the moon races along, they gaze into it.

The moon races above tall oaks; not a wisp of cloud obscures the heavens’ light, into which the black treetops reach.

A woman’s voice speaks:

[ERZÄHLER] Zwei Menschen gehn durch kahlen, kalten Hain; der Mond läuft mit, sie schaun hinein.

Der Mond läuft über hohe Eichen; kein Wölkchen trübt das Himmelslicht, in das die schwarzen Zacken reichen.

Die Stimme eines Weibes spricht:

[WOMAN] I am carrying a child, and not by you.

I walk in sin beside you.

I have sinned grievously against myself.

I no longer believed in happiness and yet had a deep desire for a purpose in life, for the joys and duties of motherhood; so I was brazen and, shuddering, yielded my sex to the embrace of a stranger, and was blessed by it.

Now life has taken its revenge: now I have met you, oh you.

[WEIB] Ich trag ein Kind, und nit von Dir, ich geh in Sünde neben Dir. Ich hab mich schwer an mir vergangen.

Ichglaubte nicht mehr an ein Glück und hatte doch ein schwer Verlangen nach Lebensinhalt, nach Mutterglück und Pflicht; da hab ich mich erfrecht, da ließ ich schaudernd mein Geschlecht von einem fremden Mann umfangen, und hab mich noch dafür gesegnet.

Nun hat das Leben sich gerächt: nun bin ich Dir, o Dir, begegnet.

[NARRATOR] She takes an awkward step.

She looks up; the moon races along.

Her dark gaze drowns in light.

A man’s voice speaks:

[ERZÄHLER] Sie geht mit ungelenkem Schritt.

Sie schaut empor; der Mond läuft mit.

Ihr dunkler Blick ertrinkt in Licht.

Die Stimme eines Mannes spricht:

[MAN] Let the child you have conceived Be no burden to your soul, oh see, how clear the universe shimmers!

It shines on everything; you are adrift with me on a cold sea, but a private warmth flickers

[MANN] Das Kind, das Du empfangen hast, sei Deiner Seele keine Last, o sieh, wie klar das Weltall schimmert!

Es ist ein Glanz um alles her; Du treibst mit mir auf kaltem Meer, doch eine eigne Wärme flimmert

SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM 7

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES from you into me, from me into you.

It will transfigure the stranger’s child, You will bear it for me, as my own; You have brought your light to me, You have made me a child myself.

von Dir in mich, von mir in Dich.

Die wird das fremde Kind verklären, Du wirst es mir, von mir gebären; Du hast den Glanz in mich gebracht, Du hast mich selbst zum Kind gemacht.

[NARRATOR] He holds her strong hips.

Their breath kisses in the air.

Two people walk through a high, bright night.

[ERZÄHLER] Er faßt sie um die starken Hüften.

Ihr Atem küßt sich in den Lüften.

Zwei Menschen gehn durch hohe, helle Nacht.



S TAY

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COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG PROGRAM 8

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES KEVIN PUTS (b. 1972): The Brightness of Light for Soprano, Baritone, Orchestra, and Video Images Kevin Puts was born on January 3, 1972 in St. Louis. The Brightness of Light was composed between 2016 and 2019 and premiered on July 20, 2019 at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andris Nelsons with Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry as soloists. The score calls for 3 flutes (2nd and 3rd doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, three clarinets (2nd doubling E-flat clarinet), two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano (doubling celesta), harp, and strings.

Duration is about 45 minutes. This is the first performance by the Colorado Symphony.

In 2015, I received the honor of a commission from my alma mater, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. The school’s orchestra was planning a trip to perform at Lincoln Center and wanted to include a new work written by an alumni composer to feature an alumni performer. The performer they had in mind was Renée Fleming and—to my great excitement— she accepted the offer, thereby initiating one of the most treasured collaborations of my career.

We wanted to focus on an iconic American woman as the subject, and I happened on a quote

by Georgia O’Keeffe: My first memory is of the brightness of light, light all around.

I could imagine this line sung right at the start. I learned that O’Keeffe had written thousands of letters over the course of her lifetime, many of them to Alfred Stieglitz, the renowned photographer and art curator who became her husband. Sarah Greenough’s indispensable two-volume My Faraway One (Vol. 2 forthcoming) includes the complete correspondence between O’Keeffe and Stieglitz from their first contact in 1915 until Stieglitz’ death in 1946.

With intense emotion—and often humor—these letters chronicle O’Keeffe’s journey from a young artist enthralled by and indebted to the older Stieglitz to her complete immersion in the North American Southwest where she lived alone for many years, finding inspiration for her best-known works. The letters themselves are the property of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University and I am deeply grateful for the right they granted me to craft a “libretto” made of excerpts from the letters. Letters from Georgia was premiered by Ms. Fleming and the Eastman Philharmonia at Alice Tully Hall on November 14, 2016, with Neil Varon conducting.

Having wholeheartedly embraced the role of O’Keeffe, Renée proposed expanding the work to include an equal part for Stieglitz. I welcomed this challenging of creating a larger work which would encompass their years both together and apart, from the first cautious exchanges between the two artists, through their impassioned and complicated relationship, to the years long after Stieglitz’ death when I imagine O’Keeffe writing to him even still.

By design, all the music from Letters found its way into The Brightness of Light. Ironically perhaps, it was the vivid, poetic language of these two artists best known for their visual art which I found most inspiring in the creation of these works.

It has been a great privilege to work with the baritone Rodney Gilfry who brings his tremendous gifts to the role of Stieglitz. I am grateful to Wendall Harrington for creating the projections which accompany the work, to Bette and Joseph Hirsch for their generous support of the work’s first incarnation, and to all the co-commissioners who have made its creation possible.

-Kevin Puts SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM 9

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES THE BRIGHTNESS OF LIGHT Music by Kevin Puts Libretto by Kevin Puts, with all text drawn from the letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (GO=Georgia O’Keeffe; AS=Alfred Stieglitz) Introduction (GO) My first memory is of the brightness of light—light all around.

First Correspondence (GO) Dear Mister Stieglitz— I am the young woman whose charcoals you saw.

If you remember what they said to you— I would like to know— if you want to tell me.

(AS) Dear Miss O’Keeffe— What am I to say?

It is impossible to put into words what I saw and felt.

I do want to tell you they gave me much joy.

I do not know what you had in your mind.

But they have brought you closer tome.

With greetings, Alfred Stieglitz (GO) Mister Stieglitz— I like what you write me—maybe— I make them—just to express myself.

Things I feel and want to say.

Words and I—are not good friends at all.

On the train—New York to Virginia.

I got a telegram saying my mother is dead.

PROGRAM 10

I wish you would write me.

If you want to.

Not if you don’t want to.

(AS) Dear Miss O’Keeffe— For two days I carried a letter in my pocket—addressed to you.

(GO) I am writing because I am afraid to sleep— Why did I finally tear it up?

Last night—a very bad dream about Mama.

Words are so terrible— a living, aching silence, My hands were on her face.

I know the shape so well.

Isn’t it absurd that I am afraid now?

How you must suffer now…

Thank you for letting me feel I can talk to you.

A living, aching silence, I seem to want to tell you everything I know.

A living, aching silence…

Maybe I can sleep now.

Goodnight.

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES A Soul Like Yours (AS) A greeting from Boston— taking my daughter to camp in New Hampshire.

The drawings you sent are as fine as anything I know.

I want the world to see them.

In one, I feel the powers of the night.

To look into a soul like yours— a great privilege.

I feel it roaming through space and night.

Twenty-three years ago today I got married.

You yearn for someone to understand every heartbeat of yours.

The yearn goes out—whether you wish it or not. I can never see enough into human souls.

How I understand every pulse beat of yours.

The story of those drawings— your children—I their guardian.

A Woman’s Soul laid bare in all its beauty, crying out into the starlight night.

Goodnight, Georgia O’Keeffe.

It’s like a beautiful folk melody—the sound.

Georgia O’Keeffe. Georgia O’Keeffe…

Ache (GO) I’ve been lying here listening for you in the dark— aching for you way to my fingers’ ends—

As I came up the street into the sunset—I wondered— can I stand it—the terrible fineness and beauty of the intensity of you.

(AS) Rarest flower on earth —that has no withering.

(GO) The hot setting sun so brilliant— shining white I could hardly walk toward it— wanting you with such an all over ache— loving—feeling—all the parts of my body touched andkissed.

(AS) Light and Air— Height and Depth— the Spirit of Life, Life itself.

You dearest thing that ever Breathed on earth.

Everything that’s wondrous In the world.

(GO) Maybe you don’t know how mad I seem to be growing— you will have to think for me when I can’t think for myself— all of me waiting for you to touch the center of me with the center of you— the reaching of something in the whole body for the center of heaven—

(AS) I hear a song no mortal has ever heard.

I hear her voice—her spirit bathes me in light.

SOUNDINGS

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SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES Georgia and Alfred (Orchestral Interlude #1)

your letters not those of former years I cried into the night.

Violin (GO) Dearest— It is a wonderful night.

I’ve been hanging out the window waiting to tell someone about it—

I robbed you of your faith when you were strengthening mine.

Georgia—Georgia—I’ll win back your faith.

Georgia—Georgia— You must believe.

I’ve labored on the violin ‘til all my fingers are sore—

Taos was in the stars.

And you are free.

You never in your wildest dreams imagined anything worse than the noises I get out of it

Taos

Faraway (AS) My Sweetest heart In her element— Faraway still right here.

It’s great to know you so terrifically alive.

You the wild child of the soil, I city-bred of the city.

Three letters from you— my hands all atremble.

When I read “Dearest—“ I toppled and burst out crying.

Still my Georgia—everything right.

Taos was in the stars.

And you are free.

Haven’t I worked all these years to set you free from me?

But our parting as we did— your steeling yourself, PROGRAM 12

(GO) In this sun one just feels suspended in heat— expecting to disappear at any moment.

It was a really beautiful afternoon— The simple Pueblo village— all of mud— and the dancing—everyone in colors of such rich saturated pigment— the brilliant sun and blue sky.

It went on and on— the brilliancy of color—the live eyes— it is terribly exciting—and at the same time quieting like the ocean.

I want to wear a sheet and ride like the Indian men that came tearing through the Pueblo gate in a body—all riding like mad.

I just feel so like expanding here— way out to the horizon— and up into the sunshine— and out into the night.

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES The Thing You Call Holy (AS) The house is still.

And the morning gray and winterlike.

It was eleven years ago Sunday That you hopped off the train in Pennsylvania Station ran up to me and kissed me!

Like a happy child.

Eleven years.

I see all its phases— All the days and hours and moments of ecstasy and pain

(AS) But I live in the land of ghosts and can’t go on. You do not need me anymore.

I’d like to die in your arms— A black cross against a blue sky— (GO) And now you cry for the center of me That has been pushed away For so long.

(AS) You are to paint—and live— The thing you call holy.

(GO) I just want to get out where there is space and breath— (AS+GO) That thing you call holy.

The poison of resentments The poison of jealousy— The worst poison in the world.

The growth of something very beautiful between us.

(GO) I must write you tonight, to tell you what living here means to me.

(AS) I see the studio [on] 59th Street— all the wonder and beauty and life— (GO) As yet, no particular friends— and I don’t want any.

(AS) All the terrible ordeal—the whole evolution of us.

(GO) My love to you, Little Boy. (AS) A black cross against a blue sky— (GO) My love to you, Little Boy. (AS) Georgia.

That will be my final Thought and word.

(GO) What is here is very right.

(AS) Goodnight, Georgia O’Keeffe.

(GO) It is really terribly right.

The High Priestess of the Desert (Orchestral Interlude #2)

(GO) Think of me with hands like dark brown gloves—dirty fingernails, my nose sore on top from sunburn.

SOUNDINGS

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SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES Friends (GO) Darling: it is so long and I do not write you.

I have a new woman here to take care of me.

She may not stay.

The term “friend” is an odd word.

Now you must realize I am old enough so that people I have called friends have died— but my dogs are here.

Goodnight, my dearest I am sleepy and a little cold.

Friends—maybe the best— and very beautiful too.

(GO) Tonight I walked into the sunset.

The whole sky—was just blazing— and grey blue clouds were riding all through the holiness of it— and the whole thing litup with flashes of lightning.

Maybe the man who gave me the dogs is my friend.

Is the man who brings me a load of wood my friend—I give him a loaf of bread I’ve made because I know the bread is good.

Is my framer my friend?

He has been a great help to me for many years.

The people I visited when New York broke me down were certainly friends.

Sunset

I walked out past the last house— past the locust tree— and sat on a fence for a long time— looking— you see there was nothing but sky and flat prairie land— land that seems more like ocean than anything else I know.

It is absurd the way I love this country.

And the SKY—my dearest—you have never seen SKY— It is wonderful.

PROGRAM 14

C O L O R A D O SY M P H O N Y.O R G

SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES Brightness of Light Credits As of June 1, 2019 Projections Programming by Paul Vershbow Text Animation by David Biedny Research by Susan Hormuth and Mary Recine Typography Bo G. Eriksson This program would not have been possible without the extraordinary archival resources and generous cooperation of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Text excerpts from the letters by Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz used and reprinted by permission of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. All rights reserved.

Images courtesy of Alamy Stock Photo Alfred Stieglitz, An American Place, 1938(c) The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth Texas The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe / Art Resource, NY Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, The Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Gift of Georgia O’Keeffe LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Archives and Records Administration The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY The Museum of Modern Art / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza / Scala / Art Resource, NY The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY The Estate of Yusef Karsh The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

SOUNDINGS

2 0 1 9/2 0 PROGRAM 15

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