Program Note |
I composed Extraordinary Flora during the summer of 2014. I borrowed the opening harmonies—as well as much of the musical material—from April 5, 1974, a choral work I had composed several years prior. The text, a poem of the same title by Richard Wilbur, describes an initial reaction to significant change. The narrator, confused and apprehensive, surveys a landscape transitioning from winter to spring. The terrain appears to be in a state of upheaval and disarray as the snow melts and exposes a layer of dead grass and mud. In the final line of the poem—which inspired the title of Extraordinary Flora--the narrator acknowledges that something beautiful will grow out of the chaos: "'Flowers,' I said, 'will come of it.'"
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Premiere |
Read & recorded by the Juilliard Orchestra in 2014; performed by UNC Greensboro Symphony Orchestra in 2019.
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Recording |
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