In partnership with Third Angle New Music and the Reed religion department, the Reed music department presents Elderflora by Majel Connery.
Elderflora is the story of the life of a tree, told from the perspective of he tree itself, from birth by fire to death by lightning. The 60-minute song cycle is designed to seamlessly restart at the one-hour mark, mirroring the life cycle of the tree.
Written by composer and vocalist Majel Connery, the music for Elderflora pairs the rich, earthy tones of cello (played by Felix Fan) with Connery’s own vocal electronic manipulations, to evoke a portrait of nature both deeply familiar and utterly out of this world. The work is paired with video and images by American photographer Noah Kalina.
Connery’s work is inspired by the Native American belief that land is kin. Elderflora is dedicated to the urgent message of Chief Oren Lyons: "Time is running out: Our survival depends on immediate action against climate change." Lyons is a Haudenosaunee Faithkeeper of the Wolf Clan of the Onondaga Nation and the Seneca Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River.
Show info
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
October 1, 2024
Doors 7:00PM, Show 7:30PM
Eliot Hall chapel at Reed College
3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard
Portland, Oregon 97202-8199
ARtists
Majel Connery is a composer, performer, and musicologist. Her voice has been called “superb” by the New York Times and her music “thoroughly Schubertian” by the Wall Street Journal. Connery’s work has appeared on Radiolab, Kennedy Center Live, and New Sounds radio. The Rivers are our Brothers, Connery’s first song cycle on ecological responsibility, has been performed around the U.S. and abroad, including Connery’s own recent tour with Bowerbird Collective to Carmel Bach Festival, and with Grammy-winning choir Chanticleer in a version for 12-part male choir. Connery has taught at Stanford, Berkeley, Wellesley and Princeton, and is a current teaching artist with Musicambia, teaching songwriting at Bedford Hills maximum security women’s prison. She is the host and producer of two podcasts, A Music of Their Own, on NPR, and Reverberations, with New Amsterdam Records. Connery holds an A.B. in music from Princeton and a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Chicago.
Felix Fan's versatility has made him one of the most sought after cellists of his generation. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Janos Starker, in venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Musikverein and Royal Festival Hall. Fan's recent solo engagements include the San Diego and Pacific Symphonies, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Macau Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In 2006, Fan and violinist Cho-Liang Lin recorded Gordon Chin's Double Concerto with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony (Naxos).
Fan's interest in contemporary music has led to collaborations with today's leading composers including George Crumb, Tan Dun, Hans Werner Henze, Oliver Knussen, Kaija Saariaho and Charles Wuorinen. Appearances with the Bang on a Can All-Stars has allowed Fan to work with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Terry Riley and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. In 2008, Fan joined the Flux Quartet.
Noah Kalina is an American art photographer based in New York. Much of his work focuses on the passage of time, including his well-known project Everyday, which shows the aging of a human. Everyday has been viewed over 27 million times on YouTube, and screened at museums around the world including the Musee de l’´Elysée (Lausanne, Switzerland), the International Center of Photography (NYC), D21 Kunstraum (Leipzig, Germany), Hawyward Gallery (London) and is in the permanent collection of Austin Museum of Art. Kalina’s photographs have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Monocle, Businessweek, Nylon, Esquire, Le Monde and Interview, and his work has been commissioned by numerous publications including Google, Disney, General Electric, and Facebook. Notable projects include Kalina’s 2016 documentation of data centers around the world for Google; a commission from MoMA to highlight their 2019 reopening campaign; and Kalina’s official wedding portrait of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. noahkalina.com
