FROM OUR PRESIDENT
Welcome! And thank you for joining us for this performance of Dan Forrest’s Creation. All of the Cantata Singers, our orchestra, and the singers from the Chorus of the Southern Finger Lakes who have joined us today are eager to share this remarkable work with you. Earlier this month we had the pleasure of joining the CSFL and OSFL for a spirited performance of Haydn’s The Creation, and we are glad to continue that musical partnership here.
As with all of our concerts, today is about community—the musicians who have devoted so much time to preparing this work, the local talent that enriches our region (including the remarkable composer whose music we sing tonight), and you, the audience, whose presence is essential to the experience of live music. And it is all only possible with your ongoing support.
Part of the appeal of performances like this is the fundamentally human way the sound reaches you. With one small exception, everything you hear tonight comes to you without electronic mediation: bows drawn across strings, air shaped through brass and wood, drumheads struck, and the combination of many vocal cords working together to tell this creation story. Even the single electronic keyboard on stage is being treated as an acoustic partner, used only to provide a small, tailored palette of instrumental colors. In a world where we have recordings in our pocket of almost any music ever made, our concerts remain something different—music created entirely in real time by people in the same room as you.
This event is supported by the Tripp Foundation (who funded the educational presentations leading up to tonight’s performance), the New York State Council on the Arts, the Community Foundation, the Anderson Foundation, and by you, our loyal audience. This generosity plays a vital role in sustaining the arts in our region and allows us to continue to present our concerts free to the public, and we are deeply grateful.
Under the astute guidance of our music director, Will Wickham, we strive to bring you an engaging and varied program at every concert. We believe today’s presentation meets that goal, with the added excitement that in just three weeks we will perform this compelling work in the ancient Rochester Cathedral in the United Kingdom where Dan Forrest—who grew up in the nearby hamlet of Breesport and has since earned international recognition—is the composer-in-residence.
Thank you for all that you do,
Jeff DeMeritt
President, Cantata Singers of the Southern Finger Lakes