Michael Torke: Strawberry Fields

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CD Details

Composer: Michael Torke
Conductor: David Alan Miller
Orchestra: Albany Symphony Orchestra
Performer: John Hancock
Performer: Keith Kibler
Performer: Joyce Castle
Performer: Heather Gardner
Performer: Margaret Lloyd
Performer: ALBANY PRO MUSICA
Performer: Jeffrey Lentz
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-11-08
Music Label: Ecstatic Records
Soundtracks:

Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
Straberry Fields
And It Shall Come To Pass
And It Will Show Wonders
Whosoever Shall Call

Music reviews of Michael Torke: Strawberry Fields

Music Review: Music makes life worth doing.
Rating: 5 Stars

As a listener, one stands towards Torke's "Strawberry Fields" the way the Lady in "Strawberry Fields" stands toward opera; that is completely- body and soul- engaged. And, while one wants to brightly flare over the work's sensuous aspects such as the vocal quartet that marks cue 13 on the CD or the masterful use of orchestral color to, for example, define character and relationships, one also wants to draw attention to the work's thoughtful aspects.

Opera as lauded in the Lady's lyrics and demonstrated in her actions made her life. "My family has subscribed to this seat for 50 years," she says, and she loves those special moments before curtain rise. Later she says, "I've missed...important things. Music. Feelings. Life," and "I need music in my life. Without it I'll wither away," and "We were lovers, Verdi and I," and "A world without music is a world without love." The Lady, alas confused and ailing, befriends a Student and together they create upon the people that enter the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park a spontaneous opera, an opera that the Lady ultimately conducts and stars in, and an opera that embraces the music as well as the ideas of freedom and liberation celebrated by John Lennon. With her, however, the opera closes. Silence. Yet in the farewell sung by the Son, Daughter, Student, and Chorus one senses that the Lady's opera has shown to all the nonsense of the idea that music, indeed all of art is separate from life.

Description of Michael Torke: Strawberry Fields

"A master orchestrator whose shimmering timbral palette makes him the Ravel of his generation." - NEW YORK TIMES

"The clear audience favorite." - TIME

"A moving work - at the opening performance, tears in the audience flowed nearly as plentiful as on a good Madame Butterfly night." - NEW YORK NEWSDAY

While still a compostion student at Yale, Michael Torke practically defined post-minimalism, a music in which eclectic young composers utilize the repetitive structures of a previous generation to incorporate musical techniques from both the classical tradition and the contemporary pop world. Michael Torke's 1999 one-act opera Strawberry Fields had its premiere performance at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York. Four months later it was given at Lincoln Center, and the following year it was telecast in WNET's Great Performances series. A.R. Gurney's libretto is a gently comic story of a confused old lady who imagines she is in the front seat at the opera while sitting on a bench in Central Park. Strawberry Fields is the second part of a commissioned trilogy called Central Park: Act I, The Festival of Regrets, is by Deborah Drattell and Wendy Wasserstein; Act III, The Food of Love, is by Robert Beaser and Terrance McNally. First performed in Troy, New York in March, 2005, Pentecost is one of Michael Torke's most recent productions. Pentecost was originally commissioned in 1998 by Fr. Dan Pakenham as a piece for organ, strings and soprano. In 2004 it was augmented by winds and brass to create a companion piece for Strawberry Fields. Pentecost is the Christian holiday commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, and the text for the work is taken fom the Book of Acts of the Apostles.