Welcome to EsoCasts!
These audio recordings provide expanded information about The Esoterics' upcoming concerts, recordings, and projects. For fans of contemporary choral music, these informal conversations with The Esoterics' founding director, Eric Banks, members of the ensemble, and other choral composers will keep you up-to-date on cutting edge choral work. For The Esoterics' fans, EsoCasts lend unique insight into the goings-on behind the scenes of Seattle's most innovative choir.
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EsoCast #7 2008/05/06
Exploring ÆDONIS with
founding director Eric Banks
As it prepares to perform at the National Festival of the Gay & Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA) this July, ÆDONIS will perform EXPECTO, its first concert series as part of The Esoterics’ subscription concert season. EsoCast host, Travis Mayfield, sits down with Eric Banks to talk about the past, present, and future of ÆDONIS.
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EsoCast #6 2008/04/13
Interview with Abbie
Betinis, one of the featured composers of the upcoming Esoterics concert QUINDECIMA
To celebrate its crystal anniversary, The Esoterics will be joined by its brother ensemble ÆDONIS to reprise fifteen of its favorite choral works by living composers - one piece for each year since the ensemble's first. The concert entitled, QUINDECIMA (with its title from the Latin number fifteen), features a work by last year’s POLYPHONS Youth Composer Award winner, Abbie Betinis. Host Travis Mayfield speaks with Abbie by phone from her home in St. Paul Minnesota.
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EsoCast #5 2008/04/13
Interview with Leonard
Enns, winner of POLYPHONOS 2008 International Composer Award
In host Travis Mayfield’s continuing conversations with 2008 POLYPHONOS winners, this edition of the EsoCast begins with winner of the International Composer Award, Leonard Enns of Waterloo Ontario Canada sharing briefly about himself. Leonard's commission will be performed at The Esoterics' upcoming concert QUINDECIMA.
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EsoCast #4 2008/04/06
Interview with Scott
Perkins, winner of POLYPHONOS 2008 Young Composer Award
The purpose of The Esoterics' POLYPHONOS is to encourage today's choral composers to broaden the scope of the a cappella choral repertory by setting sacred and poetical texts found beyond the Western classical canon in order to create a repertoire of choral concert music that reflects the universal beauty and power of unaccompanied voices joined in song. In this edition of the EsoCast, host Travis Mayfield interviews Scott Perkins, the recipient of the POLYPHONOS 2008 Young Composer Award. Scott's commission will be performed at The Esoterics' upcoming concert QUINDECIMA.
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EsoCast #3 2008/03/09
Interview with Don Skirvin,
The Esoterics composer-in-residence and one of the featured composers of the upcoming
Esoterics concert QUINDECIMA
Seattle composer Don Skirvin's unique choral voice has helped to shape much of The Esoterics first 15 years. In this edition of the Esocast, host Travis Mayfield, sits down with Don to understand more about the unique role he plays as composer-in-residence for the group. Don's first piece for the group, O Lady, was selected for QUINDECIMA and is discussed, but because it was performed before The Esoterics were producing CDs there is no recording of it. Instead selections from Don's Stars to Hold have been layered through out the conversation.
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EsoCast #2 2008/02/21
Interview with Linda
Waterfall, one of the featured composers of the upcoming Esoterics concert QUINDECIMA
This edition of the EsoCast features an interview with Seattle composer Linda Waterfall. Waterfall's Guang will be performed as part of QUINDECIMA concert in celebration of The Esoterics' crystal anniversary (April 12 13 18 19). In this interview with board member Travis Mayfield, Waterfall shares the origins of the piece and the story behind the music.
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EsoCast #1 2008/01/28
Upcoming concert KANON
concert Arvo Pärt's Canon of repentance
The inaugural EsoCast focuses on KANON, The Esoterics' February 2008 project (February 2, 3, 9, 10). Eric Banks, speaks with Board member Travis Mayfield about the program, which includes Arvo Pärt's Kanon pokajanen [Canon of repentance] and the world premiere of Banks' Vitam impendere vero [To risk one's life for truth]. The entire concert is a tribute to Anna Politkovskaya, the outspoken and courageous Russian journalist who was slain in her Moscow apartment in October 2006. In this piece, Eric has set texts from Anna's final article (published posthumously) with three poems by the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetayeva. During the interview, Eric 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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