After New York-based classical composer Aaron Jay Kernis contracted and recovered from COVID-19 last year, the Pulitzer- and Grammy-wining artist was inspired to write a piece honoring the victims and those they left behind.
The result was Elegy…for those we lost, a work originally created for solo piano and then arranged for trumpet and harp. That version premiered this past June by the artists it was arranged for: Yolanda Kondonassis, who heads the harp departments at Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and her husband, Cleveland Orchestra trumpet player Michael Sachs, head of CIM’s trunpet department. It debuted as part of the Cleveland Orchestra’s online Adella.live In Focus concert series.
Azica Records has now released the piece in digital single format. It was recorded by Kondonassis and Sachs at Goshen College’s Sauder Concert Hall on May 16, 2021.
“Kernis’ Elegy illuminates the emotional nuances of our collective experience in a manner that only music can do, taking us on an artful sonic journey that travels through the stages of deep sadness, resignation, despair, and rage, leading us towards hope, sublimation, resolve, acceptance, and finally peace,” says Kondonassis.