Sounds Modern celebrates Spring with an outdoor performance of John Luther Adams’ songbirdsongs in the Spec’s Charitable Foundation Courtyard, UNT College of Music, 415 Avenue C, Denton, Texas. flutists Elizabeth McNutt and Anne Dearth Maker, percussionists Dave Hall, Nathan Siegel, Greg Beyer, and John Thomas Baker, violinist Andrew May, and keyboardist Nicole Ying will perform. In the composer’s words, “These small songs are echoes of rare moments and places where the voices of birds have been clear and I have been quiet enough to hear. Now and then this magic finds me wandering (like one of Harry Partch’s Lost Musicians) in search of my own voice. … No one has yet explained why the free songs of birds are so simply beautiful. And what do they say? What are their meanings? We may never know. But beyond the realm of ideas and emotions, language and sense, we just may hear something of their essence. From there, as Annie Dillard suggests, we can begin “learning the strange syllables, one by one.”
This program will be live streamed – click here to listen and watch. Click here for complete program information.
Funding from the U.S. Department of Treasury American Rescue Plan Act through the City of Denton has contributed to making this program possible.