Nebula

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Nebula are clouds of gas and heat occupying space between stars and acting as a nursery for new stars. SOLI presents four past commissions to open the season, honoring its lengthy history of giving life to new works for 30 years. Ethan Wickman’s Ballads of the Borderland Suite weaves the sweeping texts of John Phillip Santos and Carmen Tafolla with personal accounts from those migrating across south Texas into a narrative of “cultural history that is at once panoramic and intimate.” Robert Xavier Rodriguez’s Piñata para los amanantes - based on the overture to the composer’s opera Frida - blends samba rhythms and Mexican folk songs, as well as American Jazz techniques. Alexandra Gardner explores life in the deserts of the Southwest in Crows, an illumination of Muscogee (Creek) Nation poet Joy Harjo’s beautiful texts. Steve Mackey’s Prelude to the End is influenced by Messiaen’s iconic Quartet for the End of Time in its themes of mortality, restless textures, and dense harmonic paths. Nebula invites the listener into SOLI’s musical ‘living room’ to reflect on the themes of love, commitment, and reflection, and on how past relationships have formed who we are today.