How Bright the Sunlight - World Premiere, Eastman Philharmonia
December 5, 7:30 pm Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater
FREE EVENT
On December 5, 2022, the Eastman School of Music will present the world premiere of 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis’ How Bright the Sunlight, a work for symphony orchestra and narrator, with a libretto curated by the first Native American US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. The narration is based on both the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address and Joy’s poem, Thanksgiving in a Time of War and Confusion. The concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre.
Timothy Long ’92E (MM), Music Director of Eastman Opera Theatre and Eastman alum, will conduct the world premiere as part of Eastman’s ongoing Centennial celebration. Harjo and Long are citizens of the Muscogee Nation, and Davis is a Native American descendant. The performance and commission were made possible by a $15,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The piece, in collaboration with our partners at Ganondagan, is the first of its kind – a symphonic work written and presented by Indigenous performers as “a gift to the Haudenosaunee people,” showcasing a narrator of Indigenous heritage to represent the original inhabitants of that land.
