Our 2022 End of Year playlist centers around our 16th Season’s theme of Landscapes. Each of us at Art of Elan chose an inspiring piece of music that tells a story of our cultural landscape, our shared humanity, and our responsibility to care for one another. We hope you enjoy!
Kate Hatmaker
Executive and Artistic Director
Kevin Puts "Credo" for string quartet is a piece that I never tire of hearing, especially with its final movement that truly transports me to a more hopeful and optimistic place. The entire piece reminds us to open our eyes to the unexpected beauty of the world, and that final movement is like the sun coming out after a storm.
Credo by Kevin Puts (performed by the Rosamunde String Quartet)
Fiona Digney
Managing Director and Producer
Bing & Ruth was created by pianist David Moore who studied at The New School for Jazz in New York. I love the landscape of this track - it reminds me of Joshua Tree or driving through Ocotillo Wells where the landscape seems simultaneously bare and lush. The dense, filmic minimalism is a great way to help clear my mind and provide a solid landscape within which to work or relax. Listening to this track feels like self-care every time, and hopefully others may find that as well.
Bing & Ruth by Badwater Psalm
Emily Persinko
Personnel Manager and Marketing Associate
I really enjoy Ludovico Einaudi's music, but if I had to choose one piece, I feel like "The Mountain" fits into the Art of Elan Landscape theme this season.
The Mountain by Ludovico Einaudi
Diego Rodriguez
Teaching Artist - Young Artists in Harmony
Pure Comedy by Father John Misty is a scathing critique on organized religion. Our own desire for meaning has imprisoned ourselves in belief that is used to imprison or subjugate other people. It concludes with Josh Tillman (the artist) saying that we are just specks in space and that for better or for worse we only have each other.
Pure Comedy by Father John Misty
Vince Martinez
Graphic Design and Social Media
I’ve always been drawn to American History through the lens of people of color. When I learned of Carlos Simon’s “Between Worlds”, a featured work for the current Art of Elan season, I couldn’t help but do a deep dive. Simon’s Between Worlds was inspired by American artist, Bill Traylor (1853 - 1949), who was born into slavery and was an eyewitness to so many significant moments in America’s social and political history, including the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow Segregation, and the Great Migration. Taking up art in his older age, Traylor’s work became a reflection of the contrasting worlds in which he lived, rural and urban, black and white, old and new. This performance of Between Worlds by Bethlehem Kelley, a young Ethiopian American violinist from Lenexa, Kansas, is exceptional.
Between Worlds - Carlos Simon (performed by Bethlehem kelley)
Liam Rodriguez
Young Artists in Harmony - Student Composer
The inspiring piece of my choice is Adoration by Florence Price, which I was introduced to through my conductress, Tamara Paige. Florence Beatrice Price was a classical composer and music teacher who was acknowledged as the first African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer. The simple and beautiful melody of Adoration is able to portray not only the beauty of paradise but also the hardships one endures to reach it. Listening to this piece, I imagine myself standing on top of an extensive grassland; the tenuto markings of the viola and second violin help portray the swaying of the grass through the wind, while the key changes help give the sun different shades of color, as the grass reflects its strong, raw rays of light towards our eyes, making us think of personal experiences, good or bad, but ultimately impactful, both in our hearts and minds.
Adoration by Florence Price