The chair of the composition department of the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut teams with the celebrated fiction- and screenwriter (Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter) to imagine romantic intrigue between American composer Charles Ives and Harmony Twichell — despite the disapproval of her scowling and widowed godfather, Mark Twain.
Conductor: Brian Garman
Harmony: Caroline Worra
Ives: Scott Hogsed
Quartet: Julianne Borg, Soprano; Cherry Duke, Mezzo-Soprano; Michael Chioldi, Baritone; Eric Jordan, Bass
Excerpt 1(5:57)
Harmony's "Firefly" Aria: a song of anxiety about her upcoming marriage, voiced under a starlit midsummer's night sky.
Excerpt 2(1:11)
Choral Benediction: an ironic blessing on the upcoming marriage of artist and muse.
Excerpt 3(5:01)
Transcendental Cakewalk: an instrumental dance, inspired by a 4-hand performance by Ives and Twain late in the opera.
