Sacred Mountain (2023)
a choral suite for vocal sextet, soprano soloist, and two pianists
45 minutes
Commission/Premiere: Premiered by HEX Vocal Ensemble and Stacey Fraser, soprano on February 28, 2023 in Meng Concert Hall, Cal State Fullerton
Program Notes
Sacred Mountain, a choral suite and ancillary work of Why Women Went West told through SSATBB choir of HEX Vocal Ensemble, where Mary encounters “The Land of Journey’s Ending”—confronting the wild west, the loss of her child and the voices that guide and plague her. From the three women mystic voices of the wilderness who provoke and illicit the guidance of nature, to the spiritual voices of multiple religions that compel her to follow them—indigenous, Native American, Spanish, Mexican, Penitentes of New Mexico and Latin of missionary Catholicism, and the distant voices of her past: American Transcendentalism. She hears them all and must choose her path. She confronts her own untimely death due to hard living and cancer and ascends the Sacred Mountain—the place of Peace in “Experiences Facing Death” and “What is Necessary.
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Performances
February 28, 2023 | Hex Ensemble in Meng Concert Hall, Cal State Fulleron