Sunday, October 13 @ 5PM
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia
pre-concert talk with Donald and Gavin @ 4pm
in the Burleigh Cruikshank Memorial Chapel
a world premiere from Gavin Bryars
based on the essay by Wendell Berry
“Eating is a political act.” — Wendell Berry
Finally, the premiere of the long-anticipated follow-up to Gavin’s The Fifth Century, which won us our first Grammy Award in 2018. A Native Hill will be Gavin’s most substantial work for unaccompanied choir. A concert-length musical essay based on early writings of American author and activist Wendell Berry; what may at first seem pastoral contains a powerful contemporary relevance — a metaphysical and even political force. A Native Hill offers meditations on how life can be experienced, with detailed descriptions of the minutiae of rural existence; as such, simple natural events reveal themselves as metaphors for universal truths.
