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Soloists from the Grammy®-Winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) return to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in an evening of music reflecting on memory, inviting the audience to lie down immersed in the sound of strings, walk in the space as the music reflects off the stones, or sit in seats surrounding the musicians.
Building on the success of Experiential Orchestra’s two performances of Passio last season, Music Director James Blachly brings his Grammy-Winning orchestra (with two additional nominations for 2025) back to the inspiring expanse of the Cathedral to offer a reflective and immersive night.
Notes on the Program
Tonight’s music pairs two exquisite works for strings, both of them reflecting on the past. Strauss’s Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings is a study in shifting timbres and harmonies, creating the effect of something both unchanging and constantly evolving over a vast expanse of emotions. The four chords we hear at the beginning of the work become a recurring statement, ever shifting in kaleidoscopic colors, followed by a descending lamenting line that we also hear many times, passed from solo instrument to solo instrument; only at the very end of the piece is it fully revealed, as the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. At this point in the score, Strauss writes “IN MEMORIAM,” and we are left to consider whether this refers to the music, or to a broader sense of loss.
The Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme ofThomas Tallis brings a 400-year-old hymn tune to a glorious wealth of string color. In our performance, three groups of instruments represent the past, in Orchestra II, with voicings and senza vibrato indications perhaps evoking the sounds of the Viola da Gamba consorts of 15th century England, the present in Orchestra I, the largest ensemble, and the solo string quartet bringing us into the future with its rapturous fantasia melodies. Between the two works we have invited a vocal quartet to sing the original Thomas Tallis 3rd Hymn Tune.
–James Blachly, Founder and Music Director, Experiential Orchestra
Why fum’th insight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout?
Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?
The kings arise, the lords devise in councils met thereto
Against the Lord, with false accord, against his Christ they go.
Let us they say, break down their ray of all their bonds and cords;
we will renounce that they pronounce their lores as stately lords.
But God of might in Heav’n so bright shall laugh them all to scorn;
The Lord on high shall them defy, they shall be once forlorn.
The Lord in fear your service bear, with dread to him rejoice;
Let rages be, resist not yet, him serve with joyful voice.
The Son kiss ye lest wroth he be, lose not the way of rest;
For when his ire is set on fire, who trust in him be blest.
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Additional support
The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Permission to use this photograph of Julia Perry is granted by Talbott Music Library Special Collections and Westminster Choir College Archives (Julia Perry Collection), Rider University. Digital image, copyright 2021.
Festival Concerts
Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring gets the rock-concert treatment, courtesy of the Experiential Orchestra. Led by conductor James Blachly, the group takes an unconventional approach to classical music: Think spontaneous swaying, dancing and general revelry—or wherever the music leads you. Stravinsky's seminal work, which caused riots at its premiere 103 years ago, makes a fitting catalyst.
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