The premiere of an original composition by composer Alejandro Rutty and performed by the Triangle Jewish Chorale, soloists and an orchestra takes place in Goodson Chapel at Duke University at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 28.
"Down Home: The Cantata" weaves world and folk music with Jewish liturgical melodies and text inspired by oral histories of North Carolina Jews. The score by Rutty, an associate professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, features audio recordings from the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina archives.
Additional performances will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 12 at Beth Meyer Synagogue in Raleigh (http://goo.gl/maps/FKv7b), and at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 19 at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro (http://goo.gl/maps/4LsjX). All three performances are free and open to the public.
Singer and choral conductor Lorena Guillen will lead the performances of this new piece, commissioned by Eric Meyers, religion professor and director of the Duke Center for Jewish Studies.
"'Down Home: The Cantata' is a highly original, imaginative work that will both move and entertain its audiences," Meyers said. "In blending traditional melodies with sounds of the New South, Rutty has not only captured the sounds and moods of the past but he has used the actual voices of the past to interact with them."
"Down Home: The Cantata" is a musical complement to the foundation's multimedia project, "Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina," which consists of a book, film, school curriculum, archive, website (http://jhfnc.org), and digital exhibition.
The cantata is sponsored by the Bernice and Morton Lerner Endowment in Judaic Studies at Duke.