by Mark Tiarks | Link to Article
With its Renaissance Splendor concerts now successfully launched (see “Tuned to Technicolor,” July 10), the Santa Fe Desert Chorale is turning to the second and third offerings of its summer season.
The program titled Homecoming is the group’s celebration of the country’s 250th birthday. It features five new works, one for each 50 years, no doubt, with four by contemporary American composers.
Homecoming opens with Alex Berko’s Sacred Place, from 2023. It takes the form of the Jewish liturgical service, in six sections, but the texts for five of them come from other sources. In those, the Chicago-based Berko wrote, “I stitched together the writings of several American environmentalists and poets who have spoken about their relationship with the earth.”
Berko’s sources include a passage from Wendall Berry’s poem “The Porch Over the River,” in the first and sixth movements, while “Amidah” (which means to stand), uses excerpts form a letter John Muir sent to Theodore Roosevelt, urging the president to stand with him in preserving the land.
“I find Sacred Place totally compelling,” says Joshua Habermann, chorale artistic director. “It’s been on my piano, and I’ve played it every day for the last month, and I can’t get enough. I think it will be incredibly appealing to audiences too.”
