Boston-based, self-conducted orchestra A Far Cry opened the Green Center’s Guest Artist series season Friday night with a performance that transcended national borders with the power of music.
A Far Cry was founded in 2007; in the short time since then, the group has received a Grammy nomination, garnered praise from The New York Times, and earned a spot on The New Yorker’s “Notable Recordings of 2014” list with their latest album, Law of Mosaics, from their in-house label Crier Records.
Once the uproarious welcome from the audience ceased, the group started their program. Arranged in the form of a musical journey, each song of the program was a destination. They started in New York with Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3. It was a dynamic and impressive piece that showcased the unity between the members of the orchestra. The musicians effortlessly showed their mastery over volume and tempo as the piece moved from eerie to somber to lively. From the beginning, the passion of the musicians was obvious as they moved in tune with their music and played in sync with each other.
A Far Cry’s second piece, Leyendas, an Andean Walkabout, by Gabriela Lena Frank, was the first of three South American-inspired pieces. It was meant to call to mind life in the Andes Mountains. The group displayed its inventive ways of playing their instruments, plucking the strings to create gentle, whimsical tunes. This piece also included tense, high-energy sections and frightening builds that belonged in the soundtrack for a horror movie.
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bacchianas Brasileras No. 9 came next, making Brazil the next stop of the journey. The piece was elegant and passionate, showcasing the graceful sound of the violins and the use of high, whistling tones.
For their final piece, the group set their sights on Argentina as they performed Concerto per Corde. Composed by Alberto Ginastera, it echoed the eerie sounds of earlier pieces and the orchestra’s ability to instill fear and tension in its audience. A Far Cry then surprised the audience with an encore, playing Jerome Kern’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes to bring the audience back to America.
One of the members of the audience, senior Nicole Darnall, reflected on having such an esteemed and talented group come to campus, saying “It’s really amazing…that DePauw brings artists like A Far Cry to campus so that it exposes students that might not otherwise be exposed to music like this to this kind of education and this type of opportunity.”
This program was sponsored in part by a gift from Robert F. and Barbara (Stoner ’66) Wells ’66.