CELESTIAL HARMONIES Comes to Copland House at Merestead

The internationally-acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble climbs a musical Mount Everest on Sunday afternoon, December 10, with a rare live performance of the Quartet for the End of Time by the seminal 20th century French composer OLIVIER MESSIAEN. Composed in 1941 in a World War II German prisoner-of-war camp, this massive work, among the most monumental ever written, was inspired by the Apocalypse, as described in The Book of Revelation. The concert, called Celestial Harmonies, takes place at Merestead, 455 Byram Lake Road, and begins at 3pm. Featured Music from Copland House Founding and Principal Artists are clarinetist Derek Bermel, violinist Curtis Macomber, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, and pianist Michael Boriskin.

Messiaen's vividly-colored epic is "the most ethereally beautiful music of the 20th-century" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker). Less about history and catastrophe than about rebirth of an ordinary soul in the grip of extraordinary emotion, the work's combined sonic depictions of nature, human emotion, religious imagery, and spiritual love are unique in the annals of musical composition. This indelible musical and spiritual experience will be introduced by the renowned religious historian and Princeton professor Elaine Pagels, recipient of the 2015 National Humanities Medal and author of The Gnostic Gospels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, and other best-selling books.

Hailed by The New Yorker for "bold, adventurous, and superb" performances, Music from Copland House occupies a special place on the musical scene as the only wide-ranging American repertory ensemble journeying widely across 150 years of the U.S. musical landscape. It has been engaged by Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery of Art, Miller Theatre, Merkin Hall, MondayEvening Concerts in Los Angeles, National Public Radio, the European Broadcasting Union, and the Caramoor, Cape Cod, Bard, and Ecstatic Music Festivals, and many other leading concert presenters. The ensemble is regularly featured at Copland House's Merestead concerts, and also records for the Arabesque, Koch International, and Copland House Blend labels.

A meet-the-artists reception immediately follows the concert. Advance ticket purchase is strongly advised. Remaining tickets are $25, $20 for the Friends of Copland House, and $10 for students (with ID), and are available online or from Copland House at (914) 788-4659.

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