DESCRIPTION:
Artists: Jan Boland, flute / John Dowdall, guitar / Carey Bostian, cello.

Wassail! was performed as part of Red Cedar Chamber Music's Music and Magic Lanterns program presented at CSPS Hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Saturday April 30, 2016. This MainStage performance was sponsored by The Augustine Foundation and brought Red Cedar Chamber Music's 20th season to a close.

Red Cedar musicians, flutist Jan Boland, guitarist John Dowdall, violinist Miera Kim and cellist Carey Bostian, along with narrators John Hegarty and Michael Zahs, brought a rare collection of 19-c. Magic Lantern Slides to life with newly commissioned chamber music, poetry and song lyrics.

Now largely forgotten, Magic Lantern Slides were precursors of silent film that can give the illusion of movement while entertaining and educating. The slides sets used in Music and Magic Lanterns, from the Brinton Collection of Iowa historian Michael Zahs, were set to chamber music and tell stories – some fanciful (The Tiger and the Tub), some dramatic (Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight) and some with heart-on-sleeve sentimentality (There’s Another Picture in my Mamma’s Frame).

Three composers, commissioned with funds provided by The Augustine Foundation, wrote works for these sets of slides.

New York composer Philip Wharton's vivacious and exciting work, The Tiger and the Tub, was inspired by a beautiful set of slides that tell a quirky tale poking fun at Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The work is scored for flute, violin and cello, with each instrument representing one of the three characters in the story – Mr. Long, Mr. Short and of course the tiger.

Iowa City composer Michael Kimber's haunting trio for flute, guitar and cello with narration, titled There’s Another Picture in my Mama’s Frame, is a conversation between a father and his daughter as he tries to explain why her deceased mother’s picture has been replaced. Kimber's work perfectly captures the melancholy & maudlin aesthetic of the lyrics (read by Michael Zahs) and the accompanying slides.

Los Angeles composer Stephen Cohn's quartet, a four-movement work with great drama and fantastic beauty, interweaves music and dramatic poetry (read by John Hegarty ) with a set of 12 slides to illuminate the 19th-century blockbuster poem Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight.

Wassail! was written for Red Cedar Chamber Music in 2004 as part of Iowa City composer Peter Bloesch’s Christmas Suite. It illuminates a set of four Christmas slides from the Brinton Collection.

Additional support for this concert was provided by the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Artists' sponsorship came from Juanita Dennert, Don & Irene (Naxera) Hamous and Vic & Jan Naxera in memory of Max Naxera.

Video production was a collaboration between Iowa City recording engineers Peter Nothnagle (audio) and John Richard (video).