Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Join The Knights at the Ordnance on Fishers Island for a free performance of Wings of Song.

About:
In recent years, the twin pandemics of coronavirus and systemic racism have forced us to confront some of nature and humanity's destructive power, but it has also been an opportunity to slow down and notice natural beauty in many different forms, particularly in the guise of birds and other winged creatures. Birds are the original virtuoso musicians, sending out coded signals through their songs intended to affect a change in behavior of the listener (and perhaps, at times, just for "pleasure"). Recent studies have suggested that hearing "enjoyable music" lights up the same mesolimbic reward pathway for both human beings and birds. Music across cultures has often been inspired by either literal birdsong or the spiritual experience of uplift through sound and birds often symbolically represent guides to freedom. The program features songs and dances from a diverse group of composers and musical genres, much of which either directly or indirectly takes its cue from birds, butterflies and other natural emblems of flight and the yearning for freedom.

Program:

Antonio Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in G minor, “La Notte”
Lili Boulanger: Nocturne
Heitor Villa Lobos: Song of Black Swan
Jessie Montgomery: Rhapsody No. 2 - solo violin
Maurice Ravel: Introduction and Allegro
Paco De Lucia arr. Jacobsen: Zyryab
Paula Matthusen: New work
Colin Jacobsen: Mirror for a Prince
Antonin Dvorak: Songs My Mother Taught Me
Tommy Potts, arr. Colin Jacobsen: The Butterfly
Colin Jacobsen / Siamak Aghaei: Ascending Bird