Performing “Sefiros”

Mark off Monday on your calendar, Cincinnatians. On February 16 at 8 p.m., Ellen Ruth Harrison’s art-song offering, Sefiros (the score of which appears in our current issue), will be performed in the Robert J. Werner Recital Hall at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music. The concert celebrates Harrison receiving the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2014 and will feature two premieres: All One Can Imagine for soprano and violin, and Fleeting Edge (performed as part of Vestige: Traces of Reality for clarinet, piano and string quartet), along with other works. One of these, La Danse du Baladin, for solo flute, will be performed for the first time ever with dance.

Of setting to music the poems of Jakob Stein (also reprinted in 11.2), Harrison says: All One Can Imagine was inspired by Stein’s evocative poems. Their striking imagery resonated deeply with me. Although the music has a mournful quality to it, as does much of my work, it is tinged with longing as well. And with longing comes hope for “all one can imagine.”

Fear not, far-flung subscribers: We will post a podcast next week so you too can get your Sefiros on.