Karen Hogle Brown, soprano; Kayla Aguila, dancer
staging/choreography by Leslie Stevens
(this is excerpts – a full video recording will be available soon)
Program Notes
The first time I heard Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, it changed my life. I was fourteen years old, and as I sat under the stars at the beautiful Ford Theater on a summer night in in Los Angeles with my parents, I completely identified with the voice of the child who narrates the text of the piece – so aware of the huge, complex world that I was seeing, even through young eyes. Just trying to parse it all. I can pinpoint that one performance as a pivotal moment in my decision to be a musician. I just wanted be someone who could create that kind of beauty.
The History of Red is borne from the same bones as Knoxville: it is also a large-scale work for soprano and chamber orchestra (intentionally written for the same instrumentation), where the singer grapples with the world around her. And yet it is different — Linda Hogan’s beautiful text is clearly the voice of an adult woman, aware not only of her own current world, but of the entire, complex history of her ancestors. Perhaps that is why her words instantly grabbed me — at this time in the world, when we are each grappling with our own complicated, intertwined histories, her journey felt so resonant to me.
I wrote this piece as the pandemic was raging around the world, as the effects of decades of racism hit a new fever pitch in the US, and as we headed into the 2020 presidential election with so much trepidation. My own complicated history, and the history of this time, is also embedded in every note of this piece.
I love the last lines of Hogan’s poem: “This life in the fire, I love it / I want it, / this life.” What an incredible aspiration: more than simply agreeing to confront her own history, she beckons it. She craves a life of the deepest engagement with it. It feels to me like the most beautiful way to build the world we want to see from the ashes of the world that has fallen apart.
Notes on this performance
The piano trio version of this work exists because of soprano Karen Hogle Brown. She took my piano reduction and orchestral score and masterfully arranged this version for piano trio. This staged version of the work was premiered at the inaugural concert of HERS Ensemble, at Herrick Chapel at Occidental College in Eagle Rock CA.
Recording
see video above
Text
The text of The History of Red by Linda Hogan is available here.
Premiere/Performances
The original work was commissioned by soprano Kathryn Mueller and a consortium of orchestras including Santa Fe Pro Musica, The Knights, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and the Orlando Philharmonic. The piece was premiered on April 24, 2021 by River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, with subsequent premieres by the other ensembles.
Reviews/Press
Reena Esmail’s “The History of Red” brought us back down to earth and digging deep into the dark soil. Soprano Molly Netter sang with incredible focus and beauty for Esmail’s setting of a poem by Linda Hogan, rich in feminine insight and metaphors of human conflict, procreation and survival over millennia. With vivid and flattering orchestral writing, it was the best piece yet from Esmail, an ASO regular. Like a Martha Graham ballet, it was about the womb, the wisdom and the pulse of women.
Albany Times Union, Joseph Dalton
A full profile article about the world premiere of The History of Red was published by Lawrence Elizabeth Knox of the Houston Chronicle.
