Dickinson Museum: The Big Read

[mdo...@crocker.com]

Gordon Getty Brings Landmark Composition, The White Election, to
Amherst
Part of The Big Read and National Poetry Month
 
AMHERST, MASS-    On Saturday, April 18, at 3 p.m., the Emily
Dickinson Museum will present a performance of composer Gordon Getty's
The White Election, a work for soprano soloist and piano. Soprano Lisa
Delan, accompanied by pianist Kristin Pankonin, will perform the
composition at the First Congregational Church at 165 Main Street in
Amherst, and then participate in a reception with the composer
immediately afterward. A contribution of $15 for adults and $5 for
students is suggested.
 
The Amherst performance coincides with the release of a new recording
of Gordon Getty's settings of Dickinson poems to music In 1986. Getty
composed The White Election after close reflection on Emily
Dickinson's 1862 poetic declaration "Mine --- by the Right of the
White Election! Mine - by the Grave's Repeal! Title - Confirmed!
Delirious Charter! Mine-long as Ages steal!" The song cycle explores
themes of mortality, renunciation and fulfillment through a selection
of Dickinson's work and classical music. Concert performances and the
original recording 20 years ago by the late Kaaren Erickson of The
White Election have been highly praised and the song cycle has taken
its place in the classical song canon.
 
Delan is recognized worldwide for her versatility and breadth of
accomplishment in opera, song and recording. Critics have praised her
depiction of Joan of Arc in another Gordon Getty composition, Joan and
the Bells, as "Beautifully sung and 'refreshingly unpretentious.'" Her
recording of The White Election with pianist Fritz Steinegger will be
released in April 2009.
 
Pankonin, performs regularly throughout the San Francisco area and has
performed as both a soloist and collaborator under the auspices of the
Old First Church concerts, Mills College Concert Series and the Latin
Chamber Music Society.
 
Of the inspiration for his work, Getty has noted the fact that
Dickinson had studied voice and piano, and played at home. A friend of
the poet remembered that on her father's visits to the Dickinson home,
he "would be awakened from his sleep by heavenly music. Emily would
explain in the morning, 'I can improvise better at night.'"  Another
visitor recalled that Emily was "often at the piano playing weird and
beautiful melodies, all from her own inspiration." Emily herself told
a friend, "I play the old, odd tunes yet, which used to fit about your
head after honest hours." Getty has remarked that "all this inspires
the conjecture that Emily may have set her own poems to music, or even
conceived of some of them as songs in the first place. I have set
them, in large part, just as Emily might have if her music had found a
balance between tradition and iconoclasm something like that in her
poems."
 
The April 18 performance of The White Election falls under the Emily
Dickinson Museum's spring program in connection with The Big Read,
funded by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
About The Big Read
 
The Big Read: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson is part of a pilot
initiative created by the NEA in partnership with the Poetry
Foundation to celebrate great American poets and the nation's historic
poetry locales. The Emily Dickinson Museum is presenting well over a
dozen programs this spring to invite readers everywhere to become
newly acquainted with or delve more deeply into Emily Dickinson's
poetry.
 
For more information about The Big Read or The White Election concert,
contact Nan Fischlein, Program Coordinator, at 413-542-2034 or
nfisc...@emilydickinsonmuseum.org.
The Emily Dickinson Museum's Big Read schedule includes the following:
 
·    Tuesdays April 21 and 28, May 5 and 12, "Emily Dickinson's Poetry
101" for those who've always wanted to learn about her poetry and were
afraid to ask. (In collaboration with the Jones Library.)
·    Wednesdays April 29, May 6 and 13, "Emily Out Loud: Oral
Interpretation with Emily Dickinson's Poetry" will open the doors of
Dickinson's poetry to young people ages 8 to Young Adult.  (In
collaboration with the Jones Library.)
·    Saturday May 2, "My Uncle Emily," Reading and booksigning by
award-winning author Jane Yolen**
·    Friday, May 15-Sunday, May 17, "Emily of Amherst: A Ballet in
Four Acts", a collaboration of Amherst Ballet and the Emily Dickinson
Museum, interprets the life of the poet in dance and with readings
from letters and poems, all accompanied by original musical settings
based on sheet music from the Dickinson family library. **
·    Saturday, May 16, Emily Dickinson Poetry Walk and Open House
begins at the Homestead and moves to five sites around Amherst, ending
at her gravesite. Five area poets (Deborah Gorlin, Daniel Hall, Lisa
Olstein, Pat Schneider, and Ellen Watson) will share their favorite
Dickinson poems at each of the sites.  A reception and booksigning by
the poets follows the Walk back at the Homestead.**
**indicates a program that is part of the celebration of Amherst's
250th anniversary