To commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, Union College will play host to “Mysterious Mountains” a concert featuring more than 200 performers from across the Capital Region.
The concert takes place Sunday, Nov. 4 at 4 p.m. in Union College's Memorial Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public; a reception and dinner follow the performance in the College's Hale House Dining Hall. Reception/dinner tickets at $100 per person are available by calling the Association at 377-1452. Proceeds benefit the educational work of
the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, the oldest citizen
advocate and educator about the New York State Forest Preserve.
As part of the dinner program, Association President Abbie Verner will honor individuals who have worked to preserve an Adirondack heritage in the areas of literature, music,
photography, art, and wildlife conservation. Carl George, Union College professor emeritus of biology is the event keynote speaker.
Concert participants include the Union College Community Orchestra, the Schenectady and Albany Symphonies, the Union College Choir, the Siena College Community Chorale, the University at Albany Choir and the First Presbyterian Church of Albany Choir.
The program includes:
“Blue Line” (World
Premiere) for Brass and Tympani, Tim Olsen, Union College assistant professor of music/director of the Union Jazz Ensemble;
“Mysterious Mountain” (Symphony No. 2) Opus 132 for Symphony Orchestra, Alan Hovhannes
“Adirondack Light” for Chamber Orchestra and Narrator, Hilary Tann, chair, Union College Dept. of Performing Arts, Carl George, Union College professor emeritus of biology, narrator
“The Tender Land, Orchestra Suite from The Opera” for Orchestra and Chorus, Aaron Copland
Olsen's Blue Line was commissioned by the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks for its centennial year to “reflect the spirit of the Adirondacks.” The title refers to the blue line that delineated the park's boundaries on early maps. According to Olsen, the work's jazzy, pentatonic main theme, inspired in part by spirituals and logging songs, can also be thought of as a “blue line.”
This contrasts with blocks of sound that do not represent any specific geographical feature; rather they are meant to “evoke the rugged grandeur of the park — from its High Peaks to its vast wetlands to its roaring torrents.” On the other hand, he added, “the 'chattery' sounds produced in the beginning of the piece are an abstract imitation of birdsongs heard by the composer while on a camping trip near Paul Smiths College.”
After completing a traditional conservatory education in the United States, Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) turned to different parts of the world for inspiration. Shunning the intellectual style of composition that many of his contemporaries from the first part of the twentieth century favored, Hovhanness looked to Japan, China, India, and combined them with Western styles. About Mysterious
Mountain, which he composed in 1955, he wrote, “Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man's attempt to know God. Mountains are symbolic meeting places between the mundane and spiritual worlds.”
Hilary Tann composed Adirondack Light in the spring of 1992 in response to a commission from the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the centennial of the Adirondack Park. It is scored for narrator and chamber
orchestra, and received its premiere October 18, 1992 in Queensbury, NY. The
text is adapted by the composer from a poem by Guggenheim award-winning poet,
Jordan Smith – “A Lessen from the Hudson River School: Glens Falls, New York, 1848.”
The piece is in one continuous movement subdivided into several parts. “Images of water dominate the first two sections. A fast-flowing millrace in the first section contrasts with the wide, serene, and sometimes treacherous Hudson River in the second,” Tann said. “The third section recounts the extraordinary adventure of a Boston traveler who penetrates the dark, romantic aspects of the Adirondacks with startling consequences. The earlier light and water images
return in the final section.”
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) composed his second and last opera, The Tender Land, between 1952 and 1954 on a commission from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. First performed in 1954 by the New York City Opera Company, the opera received mixed reviews, and Copland revised it several times until it reached its final, three-act form.
“We are honored to work with so many fine people at Union College and the musical talent they have assembled from throughout the area, all of whom are volunteering their special talents to celebrate 100 years of work to protect wilderness in the Adirondack and Catskill parks,” Association Executive Director David Gibson said. “This concert is the result of successful community partnerships dedicated to a great cause.”
The New York State Forest Preserve and Forest Rangers celebrated their Centennials in 1985, the Adirondack Park in 1992, and the NYS Constitution's Forever Wild clause pertaining to the Forest Preserve in
1994. In 2001, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks celebrates
100 years as the oldest organized citizen voice for the Forest Preserve,
containing the state's highest peaks, visited by millions each year and managed as the only constitutionally protected wilderness forest in the United States.
The centennial concert is made possible by the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, Union College's Performing Arts, History, Biology, History, and English departments, Union's Minerva Committee and President's Office, as well as Siena College, The University at Albany, and The First Presbyterian
Church of Albany.