Young People's Chorus of New York City Premieres Michael Gordon and Robert Xavier RodrÃguez
1st November 2016
courtesy of The Young People's Chorus of New York City
From 'As brave as a lion, As spry as a cat,' to 'As gentle as caring, And as sad as adieu,' Robert Xavier Rodríguez's As: A Surfeit of Similes will take you on a musical journey of 176 similes from Norton Juster's poem of the same name. Accompanied by pianist Jon Holden, this eight-minute musical setting for mixed chorus and piano is the third Juster text that Rodríguez has set to music. In conjunction with this premiere, the YPC has commissioned another work, Menasherie (2015), based on animal poems by Ogden Nash, for a later premiere.
In creating Great Trees of New York City, Michael Gordon scoured the city's five boroughs to locate special trees with unusual histories '…that were worth singing about,' weaving together texts by the New York City Parks Department and Trees, one of Joyce Kilmer's most famous poems.
