Thu 11/14 @ 7:30PM
Sat 11/16 @ 8PM
Sun 11/17 @ 3PM
This week the Cleveland Orchestra performs two dramatic pieces looking a life beyond death. Contemporary American composer John Adams wrote “On the Transmigration of Souls” in 2002 to honor the victims of 9/11. The 25-minute work features lyrics, both spoken and sung, based on the words of family and friends as they search for, and then mourned, those who died.
In a 2002 interview, Adams said, “Transmigration means ‘the movement from one place to another’ or ‘the transition from one state of being to another.’ But in this case I meant it to imply the movement of the soul from one state to another. And I don’t just mean the transition from living to dead, but also the change that takes place within the souls of those that stay behind, of those who suffer pain and loss and then themselves come away from that experience.”
The performance will feature the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and members of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus and the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus.
The evening concludes with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, first performed in 1901 and incorporating a song in its fourth movement which offers a child’s vision of heaven. It will be sung in this performance by young American soprano Joélle Harvey, who appeared last season with the Cleveland Orchestra in Mahler’s Sympnoy No. 2.
Jakub Hrůša conducts the orchestra. Tickets are $21-$165.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106