Augusta Read Thomas: Toward a Secret Sky for Chorus & Orchestra [Printed Music for Hire]

“…Indianapolis audiences have thus had ample opportunity to become familiar with Thomas' bright, detailed, sometimes ecstatic manner of composition for large forces. In "Toward a Secret Sky," using texts from the medieval Sufi poet Rumi, Thomas has come up with musical settings, in nine movements without interruption, that strive to capture a spirituality reassuring everyone of its permanent, universal availability. Love is the keynote, the self is a powerful vehicle to transcendence, and what the composer calls "cosmic grace" made a unique communication of such a message available to her, and thence to all attentive listeners… Rhythmic and textural variety makes distinction between the sections, which helps listeners track the progress. In the middle, Thomas has fashioned her own apotheosis of Arnold Schoenberg's sound-color melody in the 1912 "Five Orchestra Pieces," in which changes of timbre sustain and subtly alter a long line. She's a virtuoso of this sort of thing, and the orchestra made a proper spectacle of it.

In addition to brief solos elsewhere in the orchestra and some arresting instrumental combinations, the four percussionists are crucial, as they were in "Sun Dance." James Harvey, James Harvey Upstage

"Thomas’ musicality is impeccably visionary...Toward a Secret Sky” is sonically rapturous, emotionally ecstatic...LOVE in all its manifestations dances its way through some forty minutes, defining the rainbow—a promise from the Divine to mortals, who continue to cling to hope as the raft in times of trial. 'The profound beauty and empathy of love' is the gift of Augusta Read Thomas to us in the here and now. I await another opportunity to hear this superb performance of a provocative new work and, hopefully, acquire a cd so I can listen as often as I like." Rita Kohn, NUVO