The Elsewhere Ensemble is thrilled to be joined by renowned baritone Kenneth Overton in a concert which promises to be unique and powerful. Kenneth Overton made his Metropolitan Opera debut this past year and won a Grammy as soloist on the Grammy Award Winning (2021) album “The Passion of Yeshua”. He has enchanted audiences in Eugene many times as a soloist at the Oregon Bach Festival.
The concert will be featuring two big works in development. Mr. Overton will be singing pieces from “Invocation – a prayer for peace”, an original work for baritone, soprano and string trio by Eugene composer Colin Pip Dixon. The work is a setting of prayers, poems and writings from diverse cultures and faiths around the themes of peace and violence. The pieces featured in this performance are based on writings of Frederick Douglas, Jalaluddin Rumi, Martin Luther King Jr., among others.
The evening will open with an excerpt from “His Majesty, the Devil – Dostoyevsky in concert”, from Alexandra Devon’s play based on Dostoyevsky. Deborah Martinsen (former professor of Russian Lit at Columbia University) praised the work as “a rare masterpiece… it makes us think and feel, hope and fear, laugh and weep.”
Broadway actor MacIntyre Dixon will revisit the role which he performed at the Edinburgh and New York Fringe Festivals. “It is a rare privilege to watch a grand Master of the theatre with as prolific a film and broadway history as MacIntrye Dixon in an intimate Edinburgh venue”. (Sarah Martin’s review from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival).
In these unsettling times, music and literature can/should be a means to go deeper and explore the the most meaningful questions that we all face: how do I deal with violence both near and far… and within? How do we contribute to building meaningful peace? Does faith bring us closer together or divide us?
Video excerpt from “Invocation – Hear My Prayer” inspired by this quote:
“We appeal as human beings to human beings, remember your humanity and forget the rest.” (from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 1955, a document signed by eleven preeminent intellectuals and scientists decrying the existence and proliferation of nuclear weapons).
A concert featuring a new work by Colin Pip Dixon: Icarus Quartet – for string quartet and narrator based on the myth of Icarus as told by Ovid and others.
It will be an evening of music and poetry with many pieces that we’ve performed in the past, but in new forms… videos from live concerts along with some remote films made during the pandemic. We will be live with you talking about our work and answering questions… and it will be wonderful to spend this time with you together, though apart.
The concert is free. If you have headphones/earphones, please use them (the sound will be much better).