With only two weeks away from Glow’s production of The Earth Has Music, Glow is thrilled to announce the return of Dr. Jon Grier, a veteran of Glow’s Raising Voices.
“I’ve been a fan, obviously, and have participated in a few past productions,” jokes Dr. Grier, former Instructor and Composer in Residence of the Fine Arts Center, and composer of countless pieces from past Glow Raising Voices shows including Armed, And Still I Rise, and All Creatures Great and Small. And just like in past shows, Grier is using his compositions to highlight the subject matter at hand, this time, conservation.
“For me, it’s the desperate urgency of the environmental crisis, an existential crisis for our species, coupled with the aesthetic alarm that we are losing so many living things of great value and beauty,” says Grier.
In Glow’s production of The Earth Has Music, there will be four pieces composed by Dr. Grier range from highlighting beautiful and precarious nature of life, as well as a cry of frustration at climate change naysayers.
“Odonata is the Latin name for the order if insects that includes the dragonflies and damselflies; the text is my own, and ends with a note of foreboding, that if we don’t notice the threats to things as small as these, we might lose much more,” says Grier. “Reckoning is my exasperated shout back at Fox “News” and those who indulge in post-truth rationalizations.”
In addition are Against the Odds, pulled from a text by Sue Lile Inman, and highlighting the dangers of the annual Monarch butterfly migration, as well as Stephen Foster’s Merry Birds Are We which Grier wrote a new piano accompaniment as part of a project in which he arranged 10 Foster tunes.
“If completely or partially unaware of the environmental crisis, I would hope that the power of art would direct their attention to it,” says Grier. “If already aware, I would hope that the power of art would inspire them to act.”
You can hear Dr. Jon Grier’s incredible work sung by Glow veterans Danielle Knox, Christian Elser, and Jerius Dunan May 13th and 14th at the Fine Arts Center starting at 7:30pm. Tickets are available with the link below!
