Each Moment Radiant
Each Moment Radiant is a new 50-60 minute work scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and baritone voices; piano; immersive video; and field recordings from Lockerbie, Scotland. The work pairs stories of the thirty-five Syracuse University students who perished on Pan Am Flight 103 with stories of similar aged youth who are the victims of state-sponsored violence in places like Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, Bosnia, and other hotspots across the globe.
Each Moment Radiant will premiere on the Malmgren Concert Series, sponsored by the Society for New Music, on Sunday, Ocober 20th at 4 pm, Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University. There will be a reception and talk with the composer and librettist from 5:30 to 7, at the D’Aniello Institute for Veteran and Military Families, on the SU campus (Free, RSVP required by October 7).
Premiere October 20, 2024
“The result of three years of joyful collaboration and creative exploration (and grant applications galore!) is here! Composer Kurt Erickson and poet Brian Turner have created “Each Moment Radiant”, a musical commemoration of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack, and a loving tribute to the families and the first responders in Lockerbie, Scotland. This will kick off this year’s Remembrance Week at Syracuse University. Society for New Music is hosting this incredible event with the Malmgren Concert Series.
Both the concert, October 20th, 4 pm, and the reception and artist talk at the D’aniello Veterans Resources Center at 5:30 pm, are free and open to the public. Click on the link on the website to RSVP for the reception by October 7th.
Bridge of Song 2019-2020
Pianist Collin Hansen (Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland), Finnish violinist Frida Backman, and I presented concerts of Swedish, Finnish, and American song from the late 19th through the 21st centuries, performing the music of Jean Sibelius, Outi Tarkianen, Aulis Sallinen, Tom Cipullo, Alan Smith, and Sheila Silver, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York City https://www.scandinaviahouse.org/sh/concerts/bridge-of-song/, and at the Helsinki performance venue, G18. A September 2020 performance at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki was cancelled due to COVID restrictions. Our project received support from two grants, one from the American Scandinavian Foundation, and a ‘CUSE “Seed” grant from Syracuse University.
Voices of the shoah
February 4th, 2018 (Congregation Beth Sholom Chevra Shas)
Swedish musicians Katarina Ström-Harg, pianist, and Stefan Harg, clarinettist, and pianist Dan Sato, performed with Kathleen Roland-Silverstein, mezzo soprano, and Cantor Paula Pepperstone, soprano, in music composed by Lori Laitman, Julianna Hall, and Mieczyslaw Weinberg.
March 4th, 2018 (Malmgren concert series, Hendricks Chapel) https://vpa.syr.edu/malmgren-concert-commemorate-holocaust/
The Malmgren concert featured contemporary music reflecting on the Jewish experience during WWII, as well as 21st-century responses to genocide. Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” for string quartet and prerecorded tape explores the composer’s experience growing up riding trains across the United States and the realization that he would have had to ride very different trains had he been born in Europe. Donald McCullough’s “Holocaust Cantata” for choir, soloists, piano, cello and narrators gives voice to the Polish Jews’ experience, alternating music based on traditional Polish songs with prisoners’ stories from the archives at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The program concluded with Greg Bartholomew’s work for SATB choir, “The 21st Century: A Girl Born in Afghanistan,” a setting of the speech former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan made upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.
April 22nd, 2018 Civic Morning Musicals, Sundays Live! Concert, performer
