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Three World Premieres from Composer Mohammed Fairouz This Spring

His first oratorio, a commemoration of the 50^th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery Freedom March, and a choral setting of an apocalyptic Yeats poem get first hearings in Indianapolis, Montgomery and New York

March 3, 2015 – The accomplished composer Mohammed Fairouz, hailed by the BBC World News as “one of the most talented composers of his generation,” will see three world premiere performances of powerfully text-driven works this month and next in Montgomery, New York, and Indianapolis.

DEEP RIVERS

On March 6, ClefWorks in Montgomery, Alabama will present Deep Rivers, a new work by Fairouz commissioned by Clefworks and written for the GRAMMY-nominated Imani Winds. The premiere comes in time for the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and is presented as part of the city’s celebrations commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. The texts, set for baritone Sidney Outlaw, include profoundly moving poetry by Langston Hughes (“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, “Let America be America Again”), the "Black Soldier’s Civil War Chant," and the traditional American spiritual “Deep River” with a new melody by Fairouz.

SECOND COMING

On March 10, the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus performs an all-Fairouz concert at Merkin Concert Hall titled Lightning Illuminates: Irish Poetry and Melody. The evening includes the world premiere of Fairouz’s setting of W. B. Yeat’s apocalyptic poem "The Second Coming," describing the arrival of the antichrist with imagery of the end times shared by the biblical book of Revelations and the Koran. The work is preceded by the cantata Anything Can Happen, composed in collaboration with the late poet Seamus Heaney. Anything Can Happen, which premiered in 2012, intersperses three Heaney poems also grappling with the end of the world —“In Iowa”, “Höfn”, and “Anything Can Happen”—with settings of Arabic texts from the Injeel, an Islamic account of the Gospel of Jesus.

Irish poetry also figures heavily on Fairouz’s latest Deutsche Grammophon release, Follow, Poet, which includes mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey’s performance of Audenesque, a four-part song cycle that sets Auden’s "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" in the first three movements and closes with Heaney’s “Audenesque.”

ZABUR

On April 24, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Indianapolis Symphonic Choir present the world premiere of Zabur, Mohammed Fairouz’s first oratorio, which takes its name from the Arabic title for the Psalms of David. Zabur will also feature the Indianapolis Children’s Choir and guest soloists performing the ancient Psalm text within the context of an original libretto by acclaimed writer and actor Najla Said, who reimagines King David as a poet living and writing in the upheaval of the contemporary Middle East, composing the Psalms as a way to contend with his day-to-day reality.

“I was eager to bring my own cultural dimension to the Psalms,” says Fairouz. “By bringing back the essential Arabic aspect of the Psalms as well as by setting the ancient texts in a contemporary environment, Zabur attempts to take the Psalms 'off the shelf' and restore their original form as raw human poetic documents."

Zabur was commissioned by a consortium led by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, comprised of Jewish, Christian and Islamic congregational partners as well as public and private schools, and other arts institutions.

About MOHAMMED FAIROUZ

Mohammed Fairouz, born in 1985, is one of the most frequently performed, commissioned, and recorded composers of his generation. Hailed by The New York Times as “an important new artistic voice,” his large-scale symphonies, operas and oratorios all engage major geopolitical and philosophical themes with persuasive craft and a marked seriousness of purpose. Fairouz recently became the youngest composer in the 115-year history of the Deutsche Grammophon label to have an album dedicated to his works with the spring 2015 release of Follow, Poet. The album, which launched the label’s Return to Language series, includes two works that exalt the transformative power of language: his elegiac song cycle Audenesque and the ballet Sadat. The album has met with broad critical acclaim and received “highbrow and brilliant” distinctions in New York magazine’s taste-making Approval Matrix.  Fairouz’s solo and chamber music attains an “intoxicating intimacy,” according to New York’s WQXR. He has been recognized by New Yorker as an “expert in vocal writing” and described by Gramophone as “a post-millennial Schubert.” Prominent advocates of his music include the Borromeo String Quartet, The Imani Winds, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, clarinetist David Krakauer, the Lydian String Quartet, The Knights Chamber Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble; conductors Joshua Weilerstein and Evan Rogister; and singers Kate Lindsey, Sasha Cooke and Anthony Roth Costanzo. His principal teachers in composition include György Ligeti, Gunther Schuller, and Richard Danielpour, with studies at the Curtis Institute and New England Conservatory. Fairouz’s works are published by Peermusic Classical. He lives in New York City.

To learn more about Mohammed Fairouz, visit http://mohammedfairouz.com?utm_source=01-14-09_Contacts&utm_campaign=b9308ea986-Mohammed+Fairouz+Spring+15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1497688fe3-b9308ea986-59975090.