“The Book of Never, a world premiere from Aaron Helgeson
on texts of the Novgorod Codex

a world premiere from Tawnie Olson
with major support from the Barlow Foundation

The Woman Where We Are Living (2014) by Robert Maggio
on texts of Alois Alzheimer
with Elizabeth Steiner, harp

Three works that confront our use of words: writing, naming, calling.

Based on the Novgorod Codex — a 10th-century book of Russian psalms overwritten hundreds of times with heretical sermons — Aaron Helgeson’s The Book of Never confronts our complex present by unearthing phantoms of our ancient past. Dense harmonies build on layered echoes of ancient hymn fragments: a banished monk’s apocalyptic visions of a distant future. Tawnie Olson takes our new commission as an opportunity to hear our own words, or those like us: how we use our voices to refer to others, what it means, and how it feels. Following the success last year of Robert Maggio’s Aniara, we revisit his 2014 commission The Woman Where We Are Living, a look at aging through the notes of Dr. Alzheimer and the thoughts of the first patient diagnosed with the disease that bears his name.”

-from www.crossingchoir.org