The Given Note

The Given Note (2024)

The Given Note is the title of a poem that Seamus Heaney wrote inspired by a haunting Irish tune called Port NaBpúcai. It translates as Song of the Spirits (or Fairies). According to legend, it was composed long ago by a lone fiddler on one of the Blasket Islands off the coast of Western Ireland. 

I wrote this piece to commemorate the opening of the Prior Center at Holy Cross. I wanted to honor the dream and vision of Neil and Trudie Prior, and the magnificent creation of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, by composing a work in which the emotion is evoked less by the sentiment of the tunes than by the architecture of the music: the proportions among all its elements. I explore two kinds of architecture here: the fluid architecture of dreams and the cosmos, and  the human-made “geometrical” architecture represented in this building. 

 

Duration
27'00
Premiered
The Prior Performing Arts Center, The College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA
May 3, 2024
Premiere Performance
by Johnny Gandelsman, violin and The Knights, Colin Jacobsen, Artistic Director and concertmaster; Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Director and conductor
Commissioned
by Trudie and Neil Prior to celebrate the Prior Performing Arts Center
Dedicated
to Trudie and Neil Prior
 
Jason Lowenhar