(section violin)

‘Birds in Flight’ was the original title for this program. Each piece portrays an aspect of the the aerial adventures of these soaring creatures. Respighi’s avian friends are from an olde worlde, harking back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

By contrast, the Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu writes an exquisite elegy to modernity: ‘I see a sky with transparent birds. With sad eyes they quietly look down on the human beings crawling around in an artificial forest below them.’

Efraín Amaya uses the pulsating rhythms of his native Venezuela to depict the kinetic energy of birds restlessly swooping and diving. And to conclude, both theScandinavian Rautavaara and Chinese-American Tan Dun, weave actual recordings of birdsong into their works.

PROGRAM

Ottorino Respighi Gli Uccelli (The Birds)

Takashi Yoshimatsu Birds are still…

Efraín Amaya Pájaros de tres alas (Birds of three wings)

Einojuhani Rautavaara Cantus Arcticus

Tan Dun Passacaglia: Secret of Wind and Birds