The Music Center at Strathmore celebrates the 40th anniversary of Earth Day Friday with an appropriately titled program, “Song of the Earth,” composer Malcolm Dalglish’s amazing suite for hammer dulcimer, choir, percussion and dance.
If you go
Song of the Earth
Where: The Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Info: $15 to $55; 301-581-5194; strathmore.org
“Song of the Earth” continues to be inspired by the poetry of 76-year-old Kentucky farmer-environmentalist Wendell Berry, who has said, “In poetry, words remember song. In my own work, for a long time, the words have seemed to be in search of their native or appropriate music. [Dalglish’s] music and the voices give the poems a completeness that I desired but did not imagine.” Indeed, the poems-turned-songs in this suite include titles such as “Great Trees,” “The Peace of Wild Things,” “Broken Ground” and “Walking in the Cradle of Our Land.” The program will also feature the world premier of Dalglish’s new piece “Violets.”
Dalglish, who said he sees Earth Day as more of an era in which we live, finds that people today are thinking together about changing their ways of living.
“I find [Berry’s work] very powerful and useful poetry for thinking about ways we might live in harmony with all the life forms that are staying with or without us on this planet,” he said. “His poetry has [seen] a full generation and I’ve lived in harmony with it all my life.”
The beautiful harmony in this concert is made by Dalglish on hammered dulcimer, N. Scott Robinson on frame drums and percussion and Moira Smiley & VOCO on cello, banjo and vocals.
In true celebratory style, the Shizumi and the Kodomo dance troupe are joined by Irish step dancers from the Culkin School, a fiddler and a bagpipe recessional led by Andrew Donlon. Chorals will be performed by InToneNation, an a cappella group from Montgomery Blair High School, the George Washington University Singers and the 125-member Carpe Diem Choir.
“When a community raises its voice in song, it seems anything is possible,” Shelly Brown, artistic director for Strathmore, said. “Daglish’s musical homage to Mother Earth makes you want to enlist as her foot soldier ensuring the future of our planet. The harmonies are at once powerful, charming and inspiring.”
