Crater Lake Anchors New National Park Commission
There was a lot to celebrate at the Hult Center in Eugene this July. Our first concert collaboration with the Oregon Bach Festival, “American Tapestry,” featured a newly commissioned rendition of National Park Suite.
This came during the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, and what better way to salute the country than to celebrate what unites us all—our collective love for our National Parks. Yellowstone, Big Bend, The Great Smokies, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Oregon’s own, Crater Lake, cascaded above the orchestra during the premiere as they performed two inspiring works by Aaron Copland, under the direction of New Zealand conductor Gemma New.
For the recently produced Crater Lake vignette, Nicholas Bardonnay made a special trip to the high elevation lake earlier in the summer to photograph. It was a unique opportunity to be able to customize the National Park visuals in order to highlight such a regionally significant place. Eugene sits about 85 miles away, as the crow flies, from Crater Lake—a tad longer if one traverse the many mountains of the Cascade Range. It is also Oregon’s only national park, quite a surprise for such a supremely natural state.
Another interesting twist on this new project was that Nicholas curated a collection of historic National Park archival imagery to provide a brief illustration on the building of the national park infrastructure, its early visitors, and the wonderful National Park rangers and staff who make it all possible. Coincidentally, the National Park Service has been an American tradition for 110 years now in 2026, and 10 years ago during the NPS’s Centennial was the original premiere of Nicholas’s National Park Suite with the National Symphony at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.
The two Copland works for the visual choreography are an abridged version of Appalachian Spring that seamlessly segues into the sweeping choral version of The Promise of Living. The Oregon Bach Festival Chorus and University of Oregon Chamber Choir provided the gusto for this.
Also on the program was Margaret Bonds’s Credo, conducted by Anton Armstrong, which featured the U of O Choir, as well as Soprano Nicole Joseph and baritone Carl DuPont. Pianist Conrad Tao also showcased his flair and expertise with the third year of the Festival’s “New Transcriptions Project” of Bach’s works as well as a lively performance of Gershwin’s timeless Rhapsody in Blue.
Stay tuned because Westwater Arts is heading back to Eugene for another Oregon Bach Festival season down the road!
(Sample historic National Park imagery from US Library of Congress and Harpers Ferry NPS History Collection.)
