New Commission for New Concert Hall in Massachusetts
Our first collaboration with the newly coined Vista Philharmonic Orchestra this April will usher in a couple important milestones. The Vista Phil, led by Maestro Bruce Hangen, is opening a new hall this season. The Groton Hill Music Center is a 126,000 square foot music education and performance space centered around the historic agricultural communities of North Central Massachusetts. Between its two performance space, Groton Hill can house up to 2,000 audience members.
Secondly, for the orchestra’s and the hall’s inaugural year, our artist Nicholas Bardonnay has been commissioned by the Vista Phil to put together a new locally inspired, locally submitted multimedia piece that tells the story of the Greater Groton area for their sold-out April 22 “Sonic Imagery” concert. The people, land, history, traditions, and lifestyles of the region will be the focus of the new piece, titled “Heart & Home: A Mosaic”—and all of the imagery will be coming from the community itself! Nicholas will be curating the 1,720 received image submissions and choreographing the selected imagery with the last movement of Dvořák’s lovely Symphony No. 8. The second half of the concert will feature the full symphony and then we’ll be lowering the screen for the local finale!
This will be Westwater Arts’s 68th community based collaboration in our soon-to-be 50 year history. Like each community and each orchestra, every project is different and you can read about some highlights on our Community Program page.
On the first half of the program, we’ll be delving further into the region’s (and our country’s) history with The Eternal Struggle. Set to Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, the historical visual accompaniment features hundreds of archival images portraying one of America’s most pivotal time periods—the Civil War. The piece also pays tribute to the character and fortitude of Abraham Lincoln and finishes with a poignant vignette from the Civil Rights Movement. It was created by retired Westwater Arts founder, James Westwater using archival period photography, and was originally co-commissioned by the Akron Symphony and the Orlando Philharmonic. It has seen many performances from coast to coast during both the sesquicentennial years of the Civil War and since—accompanied by narrators ranging from Tom Brokaw and Maya Angelou to community leaders of all stripes. The Lincoln narrator at Groton Hill is still under discussion but expect a locally appropriate community member to mark the occasion!
Also on the program is Bernstein’s beloved West Side Story: Symphonic Dances. See you in Massachusetts next spring!
(Architect renderings by Epstein Joslin Architects, Inc., portrait, dance and cow at sunset images by Steve Lieman, owl image by Cynthia Rand. All images provided courtesy of Groton Hill Music Center)
