Donald Nally Conductor (Adams)
Marin Alsop Conductor (Stravinsky, Thursday only)
Austin Chanu Conductor (Stravinsky, Saturday–Sunday only)
Charlotte Blake Alston Speaker
Meigui Zhang Soprano
The Crossing
Donald Nally Artistic Director
J.L. Adams Vespers of the Blessed Earth (world premiere—Philadelphia Orchestra commission)
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
Program Notes
John Luther Adams’s Vespers of the Blessed Earth brings the audience inside the nature scenes it conjures, with musicians and singers positioned throughout the hall. “I want you to feel as though you’re the center of the music, and that it’s happening all around you,” the composer says. “Sort of like being out in a forest or a desert, or out in what I call the real world … where there’s something happening around you all the time.”
Adams’s transformative new work is “a kind of lamentation and at the same time a celebration of the beauty of the Earth. … No matter what we do to the Earth, it just grows more beautiful.” 2023 GRAMMY-winning Philadelphia choir The Crossing—“America’s most astonishing choir” (The New York Times)—joins Yannick and the Orchestra for these groundbreaking world-premiere performances.
The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky’s vivid reflection on ancient pagan rituals, still astounds more than a century after its riotous Parisian premiere and closes this incredible program.
Lead support for these concerts is given by Dr. and Mrs. Joseph B. Townsend.
Additional support is given by Joyce Creamer, MaryAnn Edwards, Susan Mucciarone and David Moore, Robert and Gene Pratter, Carol Westfall, and Steve and Mary Beth Young.
The April 2 concert is also sponsored by Juliet J. Goodfriend and Marc R. Moreau.