The Boston-based Grammy-nominated string orchestra A Far Cry has commissioned a new evening-length work for its 11th season in 2017-18. The Blue Hour features Grammy-winning singer Luciana Souza in a song-cycle written by a collaborative of five leading female composers – Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider. The text that serves as the libretto is by 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize winner Carolyn Forché. The excerpted poem, “On Earth,” is from Forché’s 2003 collection Blue Hour. The remarkable poem takes the form of an abecedarium: a listing of images, thousands of them, in alphabetical order, like a flurry of memories from a life coming to its end.
A Far Cry Commissions Five Leading Female Composers For “The Blue Hour”
