Ned Rorem's 'More Than A Day' is an orchestral song cycle dedicated to James Bridges. Based on nine poems by Jack Larson, Bridges' life companion, the music is neo-impressionistic, calling to mind Debussy, Copland, and Milhaud. Though they are love songs, they are not always delicate, and cover a wide range of complicated emotional terrain. Rorem's highly pictorial orchestration clearly evokes the imagery of Larson's text.
Rorem wrote 'Water Music' for Robert Hughes' Youth Orchestra in 1966. The music features a challenging virtuosic duet for violin and clarinet, consciously set against less challenging music that surrounds it, the latter composed with consideration for the limitations of a student orchestra. 'From An Unknown Past' is Rorem's orchestrated solo vocal setting of his 1951 work for unaccompanied chorus based on various seventeenth-century poems.
Brian Asawa is one of the pre-eminent young operatic countertenors of our time. His striking vocal clarity has won him several awards and an impressive array of performance credits, including the San Francisco Opera, the Seattle Opera, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Opera de Lyon and recently, the Metropolitan Opera. He is the perfect choice for Rorem's music: while 'More than A Day' may be nearly 50 years old, Asawa claims the music as his own.