Terra Nova
Songs inspired by new lands, and the people who ventured into them.
On May 15, 2021, Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) and the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art on Staten Island will present the New York City premiere of Terra Nova, a new concert-length song cycle composed by the members of Oracle Hysterical and performed in collaboration with the contemporary mixed-instrument quartet Hub New Music.
Terra Nova is inspired by a range of ambitious, gritty (and sometimes naive, cruel, and myopic) explorers. Among its songs is a playful setting of John James Audubon’s descriptions of wood warblers by Brad Balliett, Dylan Greene’s depiction of the pre-Columbian exploration of North America by Chinese mariners, a melancholy view from Amelia Earhart’s cockpit by Majel Connery, Elliot Cole’s haunting setting of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s final letter home, and a Beastie Boys-like shout of the cruel Spanish Requirement of 1513, set by Doug Balliett.
Media Highlights
Plastic Dream Fugue – Aaron Larget-Caplan in Concert
First Church Boston, 66 Marlborough Street, Boston 02116
Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival: VIRKO BALEY AT 85
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 West 37th Street New York, NY 10018
Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival: UCMF AFTERDARK
Mriya Gallery, 101 Reade St New York, NY 10013