Composer Carl Orff’s masterwork, Carmina Burana is one of the world’s most popular choral and orchestral works. The Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DFCA), UWI, St Augustine, will perform the work tomorrow, April 8, at the Lord Kitchener Auditorium, National Academy for the Performing Arts (Napa), Port-of-Spain.
DCFA Head and Senior Lecturer Jessel Murray, who will conduct the work, said the performance is dedicated to the memory of Dr Anne Osborne, the seminal lecturer and coordinator of the Music Unit of the DCFA.
“She was one of the earliest lecturers in Creative and Festival Arts,” said Murray, “when it was just started and the founding lecturer and long time Head of the music unit. I would hazard a guess that 80 to 90 per cent of the music teachers within Trinidad and Tobago have passed through her hands, she’s been tremendously influential.”
Four entities will come together to perform this masterwork—WI Arts Chorale, UWI Arts Percussion, UWI Arts Steel and UWI Arts Dance Ensemble — along with vocal soloists Krisson Joseph, Kyle Richardson, Marlon de Bique and Natalia Dopwell. The UWI Arts Percussion will also perform separate percussion pieces, conducted by Dr Jeannine Remy, while the UWI Arts Steel will be led by Khion De Las.
Murray said the production was chosen because of its widespread appeal to audiences, as well as due to the level of challenge it would present to the students who are participating. He said: “I believe our Chorale and Steel should be doing the best of literature that is available for tertiary level ensembles and you don’t get much better than the Carmina Burana. The older audiences will get the sophistication of the work in terms of its text, orchestration, quality and the type and array of singing. Young audiences will like it because the music is instantly accessible with a rhythmic drive to it, and the opening chords are one of the world’s most popular sets of music, you hear it in all sorts of things.”
The text of the work, a mixture of Latin, German and a tiny bit of French, is a series of 24 poems which celebrates life and love and provides a satirical and sometimes bawdy look at the follies of humankind.
The original setting of the work is for chorus, soloists and traditional orchestra but the composer himself authorised a reduced setting for two pianos plus percussion. This version features the entire work with the addition of steel ensemble adapted by Dr Remy.
Murray added that Orff designed Carmina Burana as a scenic cantata, and it is sometimes performed as a ballet. He said: “We decided we’re going to choreograph at least six or seven of the movements, which will be done by Dr Sally Crawford-Shepherd, Lecturer in Dance at the DCFA.
Because the work is so rich in imagery, we thought it would be lovely to enhance what we were doing with the choreography. Of course we have a quite well emerging dance unit at the department and I thought this was a splendid opportunity to marry the music and the dance.”
More info
Tickets are $150 and are available at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) at Cheesman Avenue, members of participating ensembles and at the NAPA box office.
For more information, call 272-DCFA (3232), email uwi.arts.chorale@gmail.com or uwi.arts.steel@gmail.com and find the Carmina Burana event page on Facebook.
