It was an honor to be among the first to hear and enjoy a new piece especially commissioned for the Amarillo Symphony's 90th season. "The Way Through", the first work for ASO by resident composer Chris Rogerson is remarkable in so many ways. By report he had not visited the area before coming to Amarillo for the season's first concert. Let's not talk about his being barely old enough to shave. Those things are not what matter. What matters is this piece of glory written just for little old ASO 90th birthday. What a gift!
For me, "The Way Through" describes in music a typical panhandle summer day. The opening limns the sun shyly inching above the eastern crust. The early rays of a new day reach toward the heavens, stretching lazily to shed the torpor of the night just gone.
As the piece progresses the tempo quickens. The day begins in earnest- there is work to be done. The middle measures speak to the bustle, the press to get the corn, cotton or wheat planted, watered and weeded, the need to get the cows milked and turned out to pasture, the rush to get to the other end of I-40 with the latest load.
The closing notes begin to slow revealing the winding down of a day's labors; it paints the sun sliding beyond the horizon in the west, the welcoming of yet another night. At last it's quittin' time, time to rest, to recharge and to prepare for the symphony of a new day just a sunrise away, another day, just passin' through.
aio
No comments:
Post a Comment