The End of Rain

Fire and drought have become defining aspects of life in the western United States. How are these phenomena changing people internally, how are they reshaping communities, and how are they changing the way we look at the landscape? For eighteen months, composer Scott Ordway traveled widely in California in order to pose these questions to individuals and communities, and between December 2020 and June 2022, he collected 80,000 words of first hand witness accounts of fire and drought from 225 Californians in towns and cities throughout the state. He also took thousands of photographs and hundreds of minutes of video. Drawing on these raw materials, Ordway created the The End of Rain, a multimedia work for chamber orchestra, choir, and landscape photography.

Inspired by the work of journalists, filmmakers, documentary and fine art photographers, and social scientists, The End of Rain acts as a conduit for the voices and experiences of other people in order to understand how individuals and communities related to the landscape around them in this new era of continuous fires and the droughts that precipitate them, and attempts to reveal how fire and drought are changing us in personal and often hidden ways. The End of Rain is divided into three parts, each reflecting a predominant recurring theme in the crowd-sourced texts.

About the Composer:

Composer and multimedia artist Scott Ordway (b. 1984, California) has become recognized for his boundary-defying mixed-media projects, creating widely-acclaimed work that has been called “exquisite” (New York Times), “haunting and beautiful” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “a marvel” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Ordway’s remarkably diverse works fuse music with text (frequently his own), video, digital soundscape, photography, and experimental theater to explore an eclectic array of contemporary, often urgent themes including ecology and landscape, architecture, protest and revolution, and urban life.

Hailed as “an American response to Sibelius” by The Boston Globe and praised for their “arresting originality” (Gramophone), his compositions have been commissioned or performed by the Hong Kong, Buffalo, and Colorado Springs Philharmonics; Tucson Symphony; Hong Kong Arts, Beijing Modern, Bang on a Can, Cabrillo, and Aspen Music Festivals; Tanglewood New Fromm Players; Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler; Sweden’s Norrbotten NEO; Yale Institute of Sacred Music; Roomful of Teeth, The Thirteen, and Lorelei Ensemble; SOLI Chamber Ensemble; and the Jasper, Momenta, Daedalus, and Arneis String Quartets. His music is recorded on the Acis, Naxos, Bright Shiny Things, and TRPTK labels.

Ordway is Associate Professor of Music Composition at Rutgers University where he teaches courses on music, landscape, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

https://www.scottordway.com/

About the performers:

With performances described as “the best choral singing we’ve ever heard in Bozeman (or almost anywhere),” Roots in the Sky has established itself as Montana’s premier chamber choir through a commitment to presenting thoughtfully curated performances of choral works – especially compositions by living composers and historically marginalized voices – that respond to the complexities of life in the 21st century and the world in which we are living. An amateur-turned-professional ensemble, the roster of Roots in the Sky includes professionals working in law, healthcare and wellness, education, business, engineering, and music. We are united by our art, community, and deep sense of place.

Sought-after for collaborations, Roots in the Sky has appeared in performance with the GRAMMY Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing, Baroque Music Montana, Jitro Czech Children’s Choir, and many of the Gallatin Valley’s finest instrumentalists and has performed across the state of Montana at venues including the Tippet Rise Arts Center, in Red Lodge as part of Music from the Beartooths, at the Bozeman Public Library as part of the Montana Chamber Music Society’s “Noon Notes” series for elementary students, as the chorus of a contemporary chamber opera at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, at First Presbyterian Church of Bozeman as part of their Mainly Music season, at Mass in the Cathedral of St. Helena, and in concert in Big Sky, Helena, Kalispell, and Missoula.

https://rootsinthesky.org/

The End of Rain

Presented by Roots in the Sky, Thursday August 22, 7:30pm