For Kids
SAGA support will aid Dr. Cary Boyce in the composition and presentation of a new work in partnership with two premiere Spokane ensembles, Kantorei Cathedral Choir and the Spokane String Quartet.
Dr. Cary Boyce is known locally as the General Manager of Spokane Public Radio, but away from home, he is recognized primarily as an Emmy award-winning composer. His SAGA-funded new project, ‘A Garden of Roses,’ a cycle for chorus and string quartet, will center on American and English poems on the theme of roses. These flowers have long served as symbols of the human condition—from life and love to sorrow and death. The work will function as a suite with choral/strings and quartet movements in alternation. Movements could then be extracted and performed separately by each group (choral movements with piano reductions) as well as integrated performances.
Kantorei Choir is a semi-professional group of extraordinary singers and musicians directed by Dr. Timothy Westerhaus, Director of Choral Activities at Gonzaga University. The ensemble is separate from the University (though subsidized with rehearsal space), and is one of the top vocal ensembles in the area and the state. The Spokane String Quartet has presented professional performances of the quartet literature in this area for more than three decades.
The concert premier of the work is scheduled for Spring 2020 with recording sessions and wider dissemination to follow.