HERE ON EARTH

LARA DOWNES and the Miró Quartet

A new collaboration between iconoclastic pianist Lara Downes and the Miró Quartet, one of America’s most celebrated chamber ensembles.

Here On Earth features musical depictions of our planet earth, its evolution, and the lives of its inhabitants, expressed through music that spans centuries, from Haydn’s Sunrise Quartet to Darius Milhaud's La Création du Monde (composed in 1923) and Clarice Assad’s A World Of Change, newly commissioned in 2023.

The concert begins with Jake Heggie’s Earthrise, reflecting on the fragility of our tiny blue planet from the perspective of the iconic photograph taken from lunar orbit during the 1968 Apollo 8 mission. Traveling through time and space, the program telescopes in to celebrate the beauties of the natural world, and explore our always-changing relationship to this changing earth that is our home.

PROGRAM

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet No. 63 in Bb/Sunrise Quartet - Mvmt 1 

H.T. Burleigh: My Lord, What A Morning 

Jake Heggie: Earthrise

Clarice Assad: A World of Change

L.V. Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8 in e, Op. 59, #2 - Mvmt 2

Amy Beach: Under the Stars

Billy Childs: The River

H.T. Burleigh: Deep River

Margaret Bonds: Troubled Water

Darius Milhaud: La Création du Monde 

Bob Thiel/arr. Stephen Buck: What a Wonderful World 

*Can be presented as a multimedia experience with projection elements

*Developed in partnership and with the support of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center