Duration: 12 minutes
Instrumentation: 1111/2110.timp.2perc.harp/strings
Program note:
This work was solicited by the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra.
While on vacation in France during the summer of 2009, I visited two cemeteries: the American Cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer, or Omaha Beach, and the German Military Cemetery, also in Normandy. In spite of the contrasting sculptures and stonework in both--be it the muscle-bound and Promethean "Spirit of American Youth" in the one, or the grief stricken mother and father flanking the large Saxon cross in the other--the ambience in each was poignant and profound. As I wandered among the stone crosses, I marveled acre after acre at the lives laid to rest there--predominantly young lives snuffed out at ages that surreally echo the ages of my univesity students.
Les Jeunes et les Immortels is written for the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra in memory of the youth swallowed up in the vastly contrasting circumstances of time and place--to youth who rode, and continue to ride, the opposing, clashing waves amidst epic ideological confrontations.
Concert Premiere: November 2009 by the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra, Ivar Lunde, Jr. conducting; the work was also featured as part of the Earshot reading program sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra and read by the Pioneer Valley Symphony in Mt. Hermon, MA.