A Calendar of Light is a twenty-four movement, concert-length work. With a libretto by poet Barbara Crooker, this new piece explores how our relationship to change is mirrored in our relationship to the changing seasons. These range from small changes, like our personal triumphs and artistic failures, to the urgent and wide-ranging consequences of climate change.

 

Crooker’s resonant questions (“Is it impossible to plant change?” “How can we let it all slip through our fingers?”) hold us accountable for changing our lives for the better. This piece calls for reflection and action in recurring refrains and six call-and-response movements that invite the audience to join in singing.

 

A Calendar of Light takes the shape of a cyclical calendar year and features multiple starting points, allowing the piece to begin or end in the same month as the piece is performed. While a December performance might start with the January movements, for example, a March performance could start with the April movements and conclude, full circle, back in March. Throughout, nature photography by New Jersey-based artist Krysti Sabins accompanies projected supertitles, illuminating the changing seasons. 

 

Commissioned by The Esoterics (Eric Banks, Artistic Director), this new work premiered December 9 & 10, 2023. This piece is available for programming in January 2025 and beyond, and perusal scores and excerpts from the live premiere recording are available upon request.

 

A Calendar of Light was composed in part at the Tusen Takk Foundation, with gratitude to Geoffrey Peckham and Patricia Melzer. This concert-length piece incorporates existing works Light of Late November (premiered by The Singers—Minnesota Choral Artists; composed in part the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation) and Almost, But Not Quite Spring (premiered by Choral Arts Initiative; composed in part at Copland House).