MICHAEL MURRAY (b.1964): Passage to Nod, Genevieve’s Cats, Penny Whistles, The Last Invocation.

Description: Texts available online. Professor of music at Missouri State University, Murray is a prolific composer in a variety of forms for concert hall, stage and screen. He writes in an instantly accessible, tonal, neo-romantic idiom, and has been especially hailed for his richly eloquent works featuring the human voice, often setting Romantic poets, highlighting the sumptuous tapestry of their evocative imagery. The cycle of six Robert Louis Stephenson settings with orchestra, Passage to Nod, to poems from A Child's Garden of Verses, is especially striking in its serious, even dark, tone, taking the visions of a child’s imagination as seriously as does the poet. The nocturnal imagery of "Where go the Boats", "Good-night", and the night terrors of "Shadow March" have much in common with the rich, saturated, enfolding colors of European late Romanticism. The cat portraits by Wordsworth, Yeats and Keats are presented in the tradition of Barber and Rorem, who are also recalled along with British song composers like Ireland, Bush or Britten in the innocent, earlier Stephenson cycle Penny Whistles. The Last Invocation (2016) is an orchestral setting of Whitman's poem, characteristically overflowing with humanity, tenderness and strength. The powerfully moving work was written in memory of the composer’s brother. It begins with a long, desolate orchestral introduction, gradually progressing toward a sense of release and acceptance in its later stages. Genevieve Fulks (soprano), Minju Choi Witte (piano), Allison Storochuk (clarinet), Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra; Stanislav Vavřínek.