The White Election

 

Wednesday April 12th, 2023 at 8:30 pm
Ford-Crawford Hall in Simon Music Center
Indiana University, Bloomington

 

The Stone Age Institute is proud to present a performance of The White Election at the Ford-Crawford Hall of Simon Music Center on April 12th, 2023 at 8:30 pm.

American composer Gordon Getty has made a lifetime of contributions to the world of classical music. In recognition of his extraordinary musical legacy, he was awarded the prestigious European Culture Prize in 2019 and inducted into Opera America's Opera Hall of Fame in 2022. Getty has created many works, most recently Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which premiered November 14, 2021. His work has been performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Vienna’s Brahms Saal and Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and Bolshoi Theatre.

The White Election, Getty's song cycle of 32 songs set to the poems of Emily Dickinson, is a work that Gordon Getty says represents his best efforts. It is indeed a highly polished collection, creating an interior life of Emily Dickinson through her poetry.

“The White Election stands as a clear masterpiece… you’ll hear a kind of melodic quaintness that suits the poems quite well—more of the 19th than the 20th Century…. Each work here is a small jewel and should please just about anyone, whether you’re familiar with Emily Dickinson’s poetry or not.”
~American Record Guide

"Getty (b. 1933) clearly venerates Dickinson, and treats the texts lovingly. With only a few exceptions, the songs are simple – even simplistic, as if the composer were channeling music that Dickinson herself, an amateur pianist and singer, could have come up with for her own poems.”
~Joshua Rosenblum
Opera News, November 2009

“Getty consistently captures in music the spirit of Dickinson’s poems, amplifying or commenting on the words without ever detracting from their power or their beauty.”
~Fanfare