Yakama elders teach that there are as many as 44 distinct seasons. We kick off 10th season anniversary celebrations with Vivaldi’s beloved “Four Seasons,” interspersed with stories from the Yakama tradition by scholar and master storyteller Dr. Michelle Jacob. Violinist David Greenberg leads our most ambitious production to date with Byron Schenkman at the harpsichord. Original prints by Karuk artist Fox Spears, will be displayed and for sale in the lobby.

Program

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): 

“Spring” Concerto in E Major, op. 8, no. 1

Allegro – Largo e pianissimo sempre – Allegro pastorale 

Connor Chee (b. 1987):

Navajo Prelude no. 2

Storyteller Michelle Jacob:

“I Love Pyaxí (Bitterroot)” from The Auntie Way
“44 Seasons” from Fox Doesn’t Wear a Watch

Francesca Caccini (1587-1640):

Sinfonia no. 1 from “La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Acina”

Antonio Vivaldi:

“Summer” Concerto in G Minor, op. 8, no. 2

Allegro non molto – Adagio e piano, Presto e forte – Presto 

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729): 

Tocade in F Major

Antonio Vivaldi:

“Autumn” Concerto in F Major, op. 8, no. 3

Allegro – Adagio molto – Allegro 

Storyteller Michelle Jacob:

“I Love Wíwnu (Huckleberry)” from Huckleberries & Coyotes
“Elder Birthdays” from Birthday Gifts

Luis Advis (1935-2004): 

Prelude in B-flat

Antonio Vivaldi:

“Winter” Concerto in F Minor, op. 8, no. 4

Allegro non molto – Largo – Allegro 

There are many things we take for granted based on our cultural upbringing. The idea of four seasons seems pretty basic to anyone raised in a European-influenced culture. Yet this is not universal. Dr. Michelle Jacob, storyteller and professor of indigenous studies, teaches that Yakama tradition recognizes as many as 44 distinct seasons. Antonio Vivaldi’s most famous work is a set of four violin concertos offering a musical depiction of the seasons from an 18th-century Venetian perspective. Our program intersperses Vivaldi’s concertos with stories of the seasons from the Yakama tradition plus various instrumental preludes offering wordless reflections on these stories. 

Antonio Vivaldi was well known in his time as a virtuoso violinist, opera composer, and master teacher at the famous Ospedale della Pietà, a combination orphanage and conservatory for girls and young women. Vivaldi composed hundreds of concertos for various instruments, many of them for the students at the Ospedale.

His Four Seasons are inscribed with a sonnet with indications of which verses correspond to which musical passages. The spring concerto depicts chirping birds, murmuring streams, roaring thunder, a sleeping goatherd and his barking dog, and shepherds dancing to rustic bagpipes. The summer concerto includes languishing under the hot sun, listening to the cuckoo, the turtledove, and the finch, sweet breezes giving way to thunder, a summer nap accompanied by the buzzing of gnats and flies, and ultimately a violent storm. In the fall concerto we hear songs and dances of the harvest, a drunken slumber, and a band of hunters with their dogs and guns slaying a wild beast. Winter brings trembling from the cold with chattering teeth, relaxing by the fire while the rain pours down outside, slipping and sliding on the ice, and enjoying the delights of the season even as a cold north wind blows through the house.