Hunting with Louis Sullivan has four movements.

 

First movement is The Hunter, The Seed Sower, The initial impulse of an Idea.  This is the statement or exposition of Sullivan’s primary artistic idea of the seed exploding into the idea.  I see it as a collaboration between the soil, sky, weather and seed, so this movement is the seed.

 

Second movement is Ballad for Lost Loves—You are here.  This is when I understood the growth of a seed within my music.  The growth or development from the seed germ is the main focus of most of Sullivan's architectural work and there was a moment when I was singing Carmina Burana in one of Sullivan's architectural masterpieces in Ganz Hall.  This movement is the weather so much like our emotions I sometimes see it as the earth letting us know how she feels today.

 

Third Movement is Frontiers, now, old and new—Song for Father.  This is about the foundation of any idea, memories, visioning and future seeing.  All of these happen in frontiers, in areas we have not fully discovered, mapped and taken over.  Sullivan saw nature as an undiscovered frontier and was ever learning from her how its forms follow a function for life.  This movement is the sky--our current frontier fascination in both the instability of the upper atmosphere which is climate change and in our ever widening glances into outer space.

 

Fourth Movement is The Hunted, the plant, the Idea in full form, almost time for harvest.  The Hunt Ends with a Glimpse of the Absolute.  And now the hunter becomes the hunted as we attempt a reconciliation with ourselves in the form of individual identity.  This movement is the soil for whenever we take from the soil we must give back in equal parts.

 

For orchestra, chorus, solo trumpet and soprano soloist

 

Hunting is based upon a Concerto Sonata form with four sections instead of three. The solo trumpet will be the contrast with the orchestra and choir.

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Please visit https://soundcloud.com/vickimilewski to listen

 

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