On Sunday, May 15 at 4 p.m., the Princeton Symphony Orchestra will present its “Passion & Affection” concert performed in honor of Arnold H. Snider, III and featuring Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Hiraeth,” a multi-media work co-commissioned by the PSO with the North Carolina Symphony.
Also on the program to be conducted by PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov at Richardson Auditorium are Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Wine, Women, and Song, Op. 333, and Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite, Op. 59.
Two days later, on Tuesday, May 17 at 7:30 p.m., musicians of the PSO will perform Snider’s critically acclaimed work “Penelope” which features text by playwright Ellen McLaughlin sung by Carla Kihlstedt. John Devlin conducts the concert at Princeton High School’s Performing Arts Center which caps the PSO’s season dedicated to the creativity of women.
Snider is the composer of critically acclaimed song cycles “Penelope” and “Unremembered.” She was born and raised in Princeton, and played in the Princeton High School Orchestra which was once under the direction of PSO founder Portia Sonnenfeld. She received a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree and artist diploma from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, and David Lang. On their eponymous Grammy award-winning album, Roomful of Teeth recorded her composition The Orchard.
Snider’s multi-media work “Hiraeth” recalls childhood visits to beloved grandparents in Salisbury, North Carolina and includes images of her family presented in a film shot on location in that state by Mark DiChiazza. Shortly after beginning the composition, her father Arnold H. Snider, III was diagnosed with cancer. She dedicated the work to her father’s memory and describes it as “both an elegy and a personal meditation, steeped in the hazy, half-recollected textures and sensations that surround a memory.”
Patrons and members will have an opportunity to hear Snider and Rossen Milanov discuss their collaboration on the performance of Hiraeth at the Saturday, May 14, Behind the Music of Sarah Kirkland Snider presentation at the Arts Council of Princeton’s Paul Robeson Center at 4 p.m.
The May 17 concert program consists entirely of Snider’s song cycle “Penelope,” originally written as a music-theater monodrama by Ellen McLaughlin and Snider in 2007-2008. Snider later re-wrote it as a song cycle for voice and chamber ensemble. Inspired by Homer’s character Penelope, the work explores themes of war, trauma, and homecoming, but it’s ultimately a story of relationships, passion, and healing.
The May 15 “Passion & Affection” concert is sponsored by Joyce and Georg Albers-Schonberg and Melanie and John Clarke in honor of their friend and colleague Arnold H. Snider, III. The PSO’s performance of Hiraeth is supported in part by the Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy.
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Hiraeth and surrounding events including the May 17 “Penelope” concert are supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Tickets for both performances are available at princetonsymphony.org and 609 497-0020.
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