A Musical Pilgrimage Begins

Volti presents a world premiere in a program themed around meditation tonight and tomorrow, that also includes the first part of a year-long musical pilgrimage. Artistic Director Robert Geary says ‘Mantras, Miracles, Meditations’ ends with the first movement of British composer Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, which Volti will be performing in full next year in Grace Cathedral with the dancers of ODC.

There’s more information about the concerts in Berkeley tonight and San Francisco tomorrow night at the Volti website.

The premiere will be Robin Estrada’s Caeli enarrant (“The Heavens are Telling”). The ensemble has collaborated before with the Berkeley-based Filipino composer. “He actually makes this very joyful piece that is built around the line ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ Geary explains. “Gamelan culture is pervasive in Indonesia, but it also is in Southern Philippines. And In a previous piece we commissioned from Robin, there were some elements of gamelan, and in this one, there’s a lot of gamelan rhythm and scale that is infectiously joyful and rhythmic.” There’s also Žibuoklé Martinaityté’s The Blue of Distance, Ingrid Stölzel’s Into Being, and Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna. The movement from Path of Miracles describes the 800 mile pilgrimage in Spain called Camino de Santiago that people make every summer. Geary is looking forward to performing it in Grace Cathedral next year. “It’s an extraordinary space for this kind of project, so we have started the pilgrimage now, but the pilgrimage actually ends a year from now. Not in Spain, but at Grace Cathedral with dancers, in what I think will be one of the more special things I’ve ever been a part of.”