Festival 2013
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featuring artists-in-residence TRANSIT
commissioned work premiered and recorded by TRANSIT
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& Los Holy Santos Gang
JULY 5-9, 2013, HALIBUT COVE AND HOMER, ALASKA
Fri, 7/5 – Mainstage Concert at Bunnell Street Arts Center Sun, 7/7 – Concert on Halibut Cove's Floating Stage, presented by Halibut Cove Live Mon, 7/8 – Composing Workshop / Instrument Exploration / Masterclasses, at Bunnell Street Arts Center Tue, 7/9 – Wild Shore + Los Holy Santos Gang double-bill and community performance of Terry Riley's In C at Down East Saloon MAINSTAGE PROGRAM
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NOTES ON THE MAINSTAGE PROGRAM BY ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND HOMER-NATIVE, CONRAD WINSLOW
When I lived in Homer, my teachers, mentors and friends knew me as a pianist. I am reintroducing myself this year as a composer with a brand-new piece dedicated to Homer and a collection of five works that has made a strong impact on me. I want to say a little bit about why we chose these spectacular pieces, and about what to expect from them. The first reason for picking these works is that their composers are alive; Fairbanks-based composer John Luther Adams is the oldest, I am the youngest, and nobody is over the age of seventy. There are legions of composers working today in every imaginable aesthetic, so it was easy for us to limit our selections to the works of living composers. The second reason for choosing these pieces is that each contains qualities that I feel resonate with Homer in particular. Sean Friar (b.1985) wrote SCALE 9 about mania & rapid shifts of mood, first ecstatic, uptempo, then serene and searching, the way one might suddenly feel when Kachemak Bay peels into sight on a perfect day. INDIGENOUS INSTRUMENTS by Steven Mackey (b.1956) conjures music from a fictional culture, highlighting funky, strange characters that definitely make me think of some of my childhood Homer neighbors. MAKE PRAYERS TO THE RAVEN by John Luther Adams (b.1953) was originally composed as a film score for a documentary about the Koyukon Athabascans of interior Alaska. Much of John Luther Adams’ music is deeply rooted in the Arctic, and his adaptations of two Athabascan songs in Prayers sculpt this profoundly Alaskan work. Another work about place—this time about water—is LIEUX RETROUVÉS: I. LES EAUX (Places Revisited: I. The Waters) by British composer Thomas Adès (b.1971). As someone who has returned to Homer after years away, I can’t think of a more appropriate tribute to Kachemak Bay than this gorgeous cello and piano duet. Another duet on the program, LEND/LEASE, by David Lang (b.1957), refers to the Lend-Lease act between the U.S. and Britain that shepherded our entry into World War II. It’s about friendship and coöperation, qualities I’ve always felt at the center of Homer culture. You immediately sense that when you hear the flute player and the percussionist literally on the same wavelength, in total hypnotic unison. The third reason for picking these works is that they are all influential to my own music in ways that I hope you will be able to hear in my piece, THE COSMIC HAMLET. My work is a meditation on Homer life in two parts: the first part is Tides, with billowing music not just for the enormous ocean tides that so completely change the appearance of the Spit every six hours, but also for the spectacular changes in season, in daylight, and even the abundance and price of fish that determine Homer’s lifeways. The second part, The End of the Road, is music on the people of Homer. It begins with an ambling motive that leads to a parade of characters (based on people I grew up with), followed by a sudden detour into the wilderness (which so immediately surrounds Homer), ending with a tranquil return to town. |
Photos from FESTIVAL 2013, courtesy of Sean FRiarEVENTS IN NEW YORK CITYWILD SHORE FALL FUNDRAISER, November 17, 2012
performances by Caitlin Warbelow, Redshift, and Fairbanks-native cellist, Dane Johansen and an Alaska raffle at the Kent gallery in Chelsea 
Alaskans in New York, unite.
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