On June 4 and 5, 2011, the Capitol Hill Chorale gave the world premiere of Kevin Siegfried’s Child of Earth, Op. 35, a five-movement cantata for chorus, mezzo-soprano, strings, and harp, at Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. The Chorale commissioned the work — its second from Siegfried, after 2007’s I sing of a maiden — in honor of Artistic Director Frederick Binkholder’s tenth anniversary leading the ensemble.
Siegfried wrote the cantata’s libretto himself, drawing on Psalms 61, 65, 90, 102, 103, and 104, along with Genesis, Job, and Ecclesiastes, and closing with a line from a Teton Sioux warrior song quoted in Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: "The earth only endures." The rest of the program traced the musical world that shaped the new cantata, from the spare, chant-influenced sacred minimalism of Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, and Henryk Górecki to earlier vineyard and pastoral imagery in Handel, Paliashvili, and Poulenc.
Program
- Concerto Grosso, Op. 6 No. 8 — Arcangelo Corelli
- Ombra Mai Fu, from the opera Serse — George Frideric Handel
- Shen Khar Venakhi ("Thou Art a Vineyard") — Zakaria Paliashvili
- Vinea Mea Electa ("O Vineyard, My Chosen One") — Francis Poulenc
- The Woman with the Alabaster Box — Arvo Pärt
- Music, When Soft Voices Die — Eric Nelson
- Funeral Ikos — John Tavener
- Amen — Henryk Górecki
- Media Vita — Kevin Siegfried
- Dirge in Woods — Hubert Parry
- Variations for Healing of Arinushka — Arvo Pärt
- Child of Earth — Kevin Siegfried
Frederick Binkholder conducted, with Jinsun Cho as assistant director and piano soloist and soprano Sarah B. Markovits appearing as guest soloist throughout the program, including in the Child of Earth premiere.
