Spirituality and environmentalism connect in Oregon professor's music

By R.M. CAMPBELL

P-I MUSIC CRITIC


Cappella Romana began life 17 years ago as an a cappella group dedicated to music of the Roman Empire, east and west, and its Slavic descendents, as well as the Christian Orthodox Church. Subsequently the group began to explore the modern world -- without ever forgetting its roots.

Portland-based Cappella Romana has played a number of premieres, sometimes discovering something old, usually dug up by their founding artistic director, the noted scholar Alexander Lingas. Other times they premiere entirely new works, like Robert Kyr's "A Time for Life."

This is the work they will play Saturday night at Town Hall Seattle. It is scored for eight voices and a trio of early string instruments -- two vielles and viola da gamba -- and percussion. The text couples medieval Greek and Latin chants, the Bible and the U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program with prayers and invocations of North American indigenous groups.

Kyr, a professor of music at the University of Oregon, was commissioned by the group to compose the work. He also contributed words of his own.

In an interview from Eugene he talks about the evolution of his music over the past decade. He says he has concentrated on two central themes: "conflict and resolution, or war and peace." He is concerned with how to heal injuries inflicted by humans on the planet. He believes we are at "war with the planet."

His last two symphonies were concerned with Yosemite National Park and the American bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, that ended World War II. "A Time for Life" directly focuses on environmental issues, inspired in part by work of the major figures of the Greek Orthodox Church and Mount Athos, one of its major monastic sites, who have made the connection between what Kyr calls "degradation" of the Earth and spirituality.

Theater has long been a part of Kyr's work. That interest found early expression with a composition commissioned by the eminent English composer Peter Maxwell Davies while Kyr was a student of the Royal College of Music in London.

"There is often some element of theater woven into my concert work," he explains. This work is not an exception. In "A Time for Life" singers are asked to move through the concert space "embodying the meaning of the text and expressing the journey of the work. The movement is not extraneous but comes from the text itself."

Kyr calls the piece a "musical play" that describes a journey from creation through the destruction ("corruption and abuse") of the Earth wrought by humans. There are three parts: "Creation," "Forgetting," "Remembering."

Greek Orthodox leaders argue, Kyr says, that "we need to become the best stewards of the Earth we can," a "point all religious leaders can agree on and carry to their people. The work is interfaith, crossing all boundaries in a non-religious, non-ideological way."

P-I music critic R.M. Campbell can be reached at 206-448-8396 or rmcampbell@seattlepi.com.

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