The Work at Hand

News of the Warrior

A Title, Soloists and Carnegie Hall Announced for Jake Heggie World Premiere Featuring Laura Morefield’s ‘The Work at Hand’

Laura Morefield at the world premiere of
Moby-Dick

I just hate it when people (Me!) release the really big news in dribs and drabs. Sometimes it can’t be avoided.

As many of you may already know, our friend composer Jake Heggie, a great pal of my late daughter Laura Morefield and composer of Dead Man Walking and Moby-Dick, among many others, is writing a concerto for soprano, cello and symphony orchestra for Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (I'd previously thought the premiere would be in November 2014; now it will be May 2015).

And that’s not all. There is a title:

The Work at Hand: Symphonic Songs

poetry by Laura Morefield 

Additionally there are two versions of the three-movement work, each movement named for a yoga pose. A chamber music arrangement for soprano, cello and piano will be premiered at Zankel Hall, the chamber music venue in Carnegie Hall, February 17, 2015. The other, for full orchestra and soloists, will be premiered in Pittsburgh in May 2015 (dates and official announcement soon on Pittsburgh Symphony web site).

Soloists for both New York and Pittsburgh performances will be mezzo- soprano Jamie Barton, a Metropolitan Opera regular and recent winner of the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and cellist Anne Martindale Williams, principal cello of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The pianist is yet to be announced. Here are details: http://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2015/2/17/0730/PM/Jamie-Barton/

Need I say that the proud mother is over the moon with joy?