“NOAH’S NATIONAL LANGUAGE”
New Commissioned Work Celebrates Webster’s Life
Richard Chiarappa, Director of the West Hartford Symphony, has been teaching, conducting, and writing music for nearly 30 years. When Noah Webster House & West Hartford Historical Society Director, Chris Dobbs, approached him about writing a new work to celebrate Webster’s 250th birthday, he was intrigued.
“When I first learned of the upcoming anniversary, I became more curious about Webster's life,” Chiarappa noted. “His contributions - from education, to our national language, to our copyright laws and more - are largely unknown.”
When asked about the new piece, entitled “Noah’s National Language,” Chiarappa said, “It is being written for full orchestra, a chorus made up of 150 voices combined from the town's high schools, a narrator and ‘an actor’ (not cast as of yet) who will speak as Noah. The narrator provides the backdrop and history, while the chorus provides the momentum and interaction with Noah. The orchestra will provide the colorful revolutionary spirit of the times. All in all, I'm very excited about it!”
The challenge of writing about someone who lived hundreds of years ago wasn’t lost on Chiarappa. “Given the reality of compressing a man's greatest accomplishments into five minutes, the question becomes choosing the largest mark(s) the man left on our country and then, how to make it somewhat dramatic. After all, Webster lived in a dramatic time - the revolutionary years of our country.”
The world premiere of Chiarappa’s “Noah’s National Language” will take place at Conard High School (Beechwood Road, West Hartford) at 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 19, 2008. Tickets are $15 per person and are available by calling 860-521-4362 or by visiting www.whso.org. Tickets will also be available at the door. The box office will open at 2 p.m.
The concert will also feature Carin Weisner McClure on violin and Stephen Clink on viola. Other works include Max Bruch’s Concerto for Violin and Viola, Op. 88 and a 150 voice chorus made up of students from the West Hartford High Schools performing the music of Mozart, Haydn and Vaughan-Williams.
The original work, “Noah’s National Language” was made possible through a gift from the Ellen Jeanne Goldfarb Memorial Charitable Trust. |
