Classical Music | Orchestral Music

Recorded on 06/29/2007, uploaded on 03/23/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Newly Drawn Sky was commissioned by Welz Kauffman and the Ravinia Festival to celebrate James Conlon's first season as the festival's music director, the summer of 2005. Located in Chicago's northern suburbs, Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony. The spacious park, with lawn and pavilion seating, is filled with trees and illuminated by the summer moon and stars (in addition to man-made lighting for convenience and safety). Millennium Park, home of the Grant Park Music Festival and the Grant Park Orchestra, is located in downtown Chicago, with Lake Shore Drive on one side and high-rise office buildings on the other. Concert-goers at the admission-free festival sit on the Great Lawn or inside the open-air shelter of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Look to the east and see the moon and stars of a summer night shining over Lake Michigan. Look westward, and there's the Chicago skyline with its array of electric lights. Writing to introduce the first (and so far only other) recording of Symphony in Waves, Mark Swed noted how Kernis's music "finds surprising room for both restless urban energy and rapturous contemplation." In Newly Drawn Sky, inspired by a twilight walk on a Long Island beach, Kernis has created a work that seems expressly designed to be heard in an outdoor setting, one that combines a city atmosphere with the sights and sounds of nature. A drawn-out summer sunset mingles with city lights as darkness slowly falls.

"Newly Drawn Sky," Kernis says, "is a lyrical, reflective piece for orchestra, a reminiscence of the first summer night by the ocean spent with my young twins (who were six months old when the work's initial inspiration came to me), and the changing colors of the summer sky at dusk. While the work is not programmatic or specifically descriptive, it reflects a constancy of change and flux musically and personally." He also said: "There are some transformational aspects from which the musical material was developed. The middle of the piece is very relaxed and very lyrical, like summer evening music. About two-thirds of the way through, there's a big buildup of wind sound in the percussion section of the orchestra -- it sounds very much like an echo of nature."

Kernis further notes that Newly Drawn Sky was influenced by the technique of constantly-transforming melody that characterizes the orchestral music of Sibelius. "Melodically, it includes a basic element of much of my work, a rapturous embrace of long lines and lyrical melodies. Newly Drawn Sky continues my approach to melody that I've used in works like the Sarabanda, Musica Celestis, and the Second Symphony. The piece is consistent with many works I've written over the past seven years, unified by a use of narrative and development of melodies and motives."

The cello theme that was prominent in the first movement of Symphony in Waves is echoed at the start of Newly Drawn Sky by another rising cello line. For this and other themes that steadily emerge and evolve throughout the piece, Kernis uses three-note chords as harmonic underpinning: chords that continually, subtly shift. With all the shifts and evolutions, however, there's still a sense of calm serenity created by the ongoing intertwining of themes.

Some urban jazziness develops, leading to a bursting climax of brilliant sound, then the serene atmosphere returns, with high winds and strings and then a trumpet solo. A wandering string melody emerges, evocative of the quiet beauty of night. Then lively wind motives provide a brightening atmosphere, leading to another string melody and a full orchestral climax with percussion and horns. The instruments of the full orchestra celebrate with a shimmering, light-filled, ascending melody to bring Newly Drawn Sky to an end.

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Cedille Records is the recording label of The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, a publicly-supported, not-for-profit, organization devoted to promoting the finest musicians, ensembles, and composers in the Chicago area by producing and releasing their efforts on audiophile-quality recordings. The recordings and their promotion are designed to stimulate interest in these performers and composers and bring their artistry to a wider audience. Cedille Records is also dedicated to promoting interest in neglected areas of the classical repertory by presenting masterpieces that have been overlooked by other recording companies.