The piece is called Hope: An Oratorio. It was commissioned by the Kimmel Center for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.
Hope is a huge piece, written for more than 60 musicians from the Chamber Orchestra plus an adult and children's choir.
Jonathan Leshnoff, Composer of Hope: An Oratorio says, "It starts with Ecclesiastes famous lines of a time to live, a time to die, a time to build, a time to break and quickly gets into some dark areas."
Composer Leshnoff includes passages from the Old Testament, an Islamic Sufi master, Walt Whitman poetry and African spirituals. While the piece starts dark, it ends ecstatic.
"I use a few Psalms, including Psalms 23, which many people know as the Lord is my Shepherd. After this huge climax, the oratorio recedes and comes back to the original words, a time to live, a time to die, but now they're cast in a totally new light," added Leshnoff
In keeping with the theme of the PIFA Festival, Hope: An Oratorio is inspired by Paris in 1911 when artists from all over the world came together to collaborate and break new ground.
"There's two classical soloists. There's a jazz soloist, and there's a world singer. Most oratorios would have four classical. This is really bringing in so many different strains and different ideas and fusing them together," said Leshnoff.
Hope: An Oratorio will premiere next Sunday, April 24th at 3pm in the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall. Go to http://www.pifa.org
