On this week's broadcast of Mountain Stage, we revisit an episode from 2019 featuring Gregory Alan Isakov, Elysian Fields, Mandolin Orange, The Brother Brothers and Hush Kids. Recorded in Morgantown, West Virginia at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center with host Larry Groce.
“Francis Vincent Zappa” or legendary rock-star, Frank Zappa, was one of the biggest influences of the music of composer John Luther Adams. As were composers Edgard Varèse and Henry Cowell, who wrote edgy, avante-guarde music that isn’t exactly melodic. “I couldn’t get enough of it,” Adams said thinking about how he dug through records of these independent-minded composers.
Adams, too, writes non-melodic music, but it is much more inviting than many of the composers he sought out as a young man. And his pieces are often inspired by nature. For instance, his Pulitzer-Prize winning composition, “Become Ocean” was written on the coast of Mexico in the Sonoran Desert.
This 42-minute piece is a sea of kaleidoscopic sound that entrances the listener from start to finish. As Adams explains in this episode of Composer’s Corner, the piece is “all about waves.” The shape of the piece is a sine wave made up of sine waves. The sound builds and diminishes in successive peaks and troughs just like a wave. Adams divides the orchestra into 3 choirs — woodwinds, brass and strings — and these choirs ebb and flow as parts of a whole, just like the earth’s oceans.
As for the explanation to the title, the composer leaves us with one clue on the inside cover of the score, “Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. As the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.”
On this West Virginia Morning, Asheville, North Carolina is home to an eclectic dining scene with hidden gems like Neng Jr.’s, which serves up elevated Filipino cuisine. Tucked away in an alley, it’s a slice of home no matter where you’re from. Folkways Reporter Margaret McLeod Leef has more.
On this West Virginia Morning, an experimental apple orchard in the state is helping to fight pollution, improve food scarcity and some hope even heal veterans. Briana Heaney has the story.
WVPB's Matt Jackfert speaks with harper, composer and producer Maeve Gilchrist. They discuss her compositions, the Silkroad Ensemble and the group's upcoming performance.
On this West Virginia Morning, Sue and Stan Jennings for 30 years have run Allegheny Treenware, a company that makes wooden kitchen utensils. But they started off as a couple of coal miners. Folkways Reporter Capri Cafaro has more.