KANON

Arvo Pärt's Canon of repentance

On 7 October 2006, the acclaimed Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in her Moscow apartment building. An outspoken reporter and human rights activist, Politkovskaya was known for her courage - for documenting the atrocities of the military conflict in Chechnya, as well as for standing in stark opposition to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Several weeks after Politkovskaya's murder and in response to her tragic death, the esteemed Estonian composer Arvo Pärt made a significant global pronouncement: that every single concert performance of any of his compositions in the upcoming year would be dedicated to Anna's memory.

The Esoterics will extend Arvo Pärt's international tribute to this fallen hero into the Pacific Northwest with a performance of his largest unaccompanied choral work to date, Kanon pokajanen [Canon of repentance]. After two years of working with these sacred verses by the eighth century St Andrew of Crete, Pärt completed this concert-length setting of the Orthodox liturgy in 1997. Not unlike the courageous reportage of Politkovskaya, the Slavonic strophes of this ancient rite made a profound impression upon the composer, one that he hopes will be shared with the rest of the world.

As a prologue to Pärt's Kanon in this Lenten concert, The Esoterics will honor Anna's life and bravery with a world-premiere composition by director Eric Banks. Having gained permission from Politkovskaya's family to set the text of her last published article in English, Banks has placed this haunting text (in which the journalist foresaw her own assassination) in juxtaposition with three poems by the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetayeva. The title of Banks' work comes from the Latin subtitle of one of Tsvetayeva's three poems: Vitam impendere vero [To risk life for truth].

Please join The Esoterics for this tribute to Anna's unmitigated bravery and profound commitment to social justice.

NEW!! Also check out our inaugural EsoCast, where Eric Banks provides some background about Anna's life, discusses the process of writing Vitam impendere vero, and describes how this piece, through both text and music, portrays Anna's relentless and eventually fatal pursuit of the truth.

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