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#SCartists gets national airtime July 22

Movements 2, 3 and 4 from Meira Warshauer’s Symphony No. 1: Living Breathing Earth will be the last piece on the 2nd hour of the Wednesday, July 22 edition of Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media’s Performance Today program.

The second hour of “PT” is broadcast from 10-11 a.m. on South Carolina Public Radio news and music stations. It will be re-broadcast on their weekend edition, and available on the show’s website for 30 days.

The performance will be the Feb. 3, 2007 world premiere by The Western Piedmont Symphony; John Gordon Ross, conductor, at First Baptist Church in Hickory, North Carolina. The movements Tahuayo River at Night, Wings in Flight and Living, Breathing Earth will be aired.

Warshauer writes, “The title Living, Breathing Earth came to me in contemplating the image of the rainforests as lungs of the earth. I felt our planet, alive with all variety of creatures and plants living in symbiosis with each other, breathing in and out, and the planet as a whole, pulsing with breath. I also contemplated the earth rotating through space, a spinning orb of blue and green, at just the right distance from the sun to support life, and our protective blanket of air, the atmosphere of the earth, providing the medium for our breath. Since the 2007 premiere, Climate Change has markedly worsened, with the balance of Earth’s “breath” more untenable. In this symphony, I honor the planet which sustains us, with the prayer that we will change our course of destruction and choose life.” Read her complete notes here.

The piece was recorded for Navona Records by Petr Vronsky conducting The Moravian Philharmonic for the release Living Breathing Earth (NV5842).

Warshauer received music composition fellowships from the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1994 and 2006. Read more about the Columbia-based composer on her website.