FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 31, 2023
Contact: Sara Harris Brown, Executive Director, PhilHarmonia
Email: sara@philharmoniasings.com
Cell: 484-433-4724

Philadelphia choir pushes boundaries of climate change awareness

Event at a Glance
PhilHarmonia Presents For Earth’s’ Sake
The World Premiere of Adam Silverman’s ‘Elegy for the Earth' Sunday, June 11, 2023 at 3pm
Salvation Army Kroc Center, 4200 Wissahickon Avenue, Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA, PA - On June 11th, PhilHarmonia choir, under the direction of Temple University professor, Dr. Mitos Andaya Hart, will perform the world premiere of Adam Silverman’s new work Elegy for the Earth, in the window-surrounded setting of the Wells Fargo Conference Room at the Salvation Army Kroc Center on Wissahickon Ave in Philadelphia. With cutting edge text by San Francisco poet, Susan Gubernat, the 25-minute work addresses issues such as the mass displacement of over a billion people by 2050 because of climate changei, the recent increase in dead gray whales washing ashore on the West Coastii, fracking, and the labelling of a new age called the “Anthropocene Epoch” iii (which is a term that delineates a time when humans began to have a significant effect on our planet’s ecosystem). It also rebukes companies and organizations such as Monsanto, The Koch Foundationiv, and the Lincoln Centerv.

“Creating a musical response to climate change has felt imperative, as it is the great crisis of our times. As an artist and a parent, I feel that this is something that demands to be reckoned with. And as a composer, this presented a valuable opportunity to once again collaborate with poet Susan Gubernat, whose gift encompasses the ability to frame issues of enormous weight in the most intimate and elegant manner,” says composer Adam Silverman of West Chester, PA.

For Earth’s Sake is scheduled for June 11, 2023 at 3pm at the Wells Fargo Conference Center, at the Salvation Army Kroc Center on Wissahickon Avenue in Mt. Airy. The space was generously donated by the Kroc Center, and the concert will be free and open to the public, with a suggested donation of $20 per person. 20% of the proceeds will be donated to Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania (https://www.conservationpa.org/), a statewide 501c4

organization dedicated to advocating for pro-environment policies, and electing and holding accountable the lawmakers who will advance them. Executive Director, Molly Parzen, and other members of CVPA will be present to talk about their work and to address any questions audience members may have regarding the issues broached in the composition.

The concert will also feature composers including Marvin Gaye, Rollo Dillworth, Bob Dylan, Saro Lynch-Thomason, as well original compositions by PhilHarmonia members Dana K. Fiero and L Autumn Gnadinger.

Says Gubernat: “Sometimes words alone are not enough to convey how appalling and inevitable climate catastrophe looks to us these days. I say this as a poet for whom words are lifeblood. I am thus so grateful for this opportunity to collaborate with the brilliant composer Adam Silverman again, to lift up language to the condition of song—the best way, we hope, to touch minds and hearts, to trouble the waters.”

Both Silverman and Gubernat will be present at the concert.

To register and make an optional donation visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/for-earths-sake- tickets-631020117157

About PhilHarmonia

Since 2013, PhilHarmonia has delighted audiences with its commitment to musical excellence, and its eclectic range of choral programming and repertoire under the artistic direction of Dr.

Mitos Andaya Hart of Temple University. For the past six full seasons, they have opened and closed their season with free concerts, open to the public. They also produce two continuing seasonal concert events each year, Winter Spirits and From PhilHarmonia With Love.

PhilHarmonia takes pride in their collaborations and partnerships with local artists and organizations including Melissa Dunphy, Adam Silverman, The Drinker Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia, SEPTA, The German Society of Pennsylvania, the Museum of the American Revolution, Nashirah, and Singing City. PhilHarmonia is funded by private donors as well as the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. For more information and to stay in touch, visit PhilHarmoniaSings.com.

About Mitos Andaya Hart, Artistic Director, PhilHarmonia

Mitos Andaya Hart has served as the Artistic Director of PhilHarmonia since 2014. She is the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Temple University where she conducts the Temple University Singers, works with undergraduate and graduate conductors, and teaches choral literature. Prior to her appointment at Temple, she served as Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Georgia where she was awarded one of the university’s

highest honors, the Richard B. Russell Undergraduate Teaching Award. Dr. Andaya Hart has taught choral and jazz at the university level in the United States, South Africa, and

Australia. She served as guest conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir in Amsterdam and Arnhem in 2007 and conducted the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir in concert at the Lund International Choral Festival in Sweden. Additionally, she has served as a guest conductor, master teacher, clinician and adjudicator nationally as well internationally in Germany, Kenya, and South Korea. Dr. Andaya Hart has served at the State level as ACDA R&S Chair for

Jazz and also served President of the National Collegiate Choral Organization.

About Adam Silverman

Professor of music composition and theory at West Chester University, Adam Silverman (b. 1973, Atlanta, GA) is a composer of music for concert performance. Many of his works have entered the standard canon of percussion ensemble literature, including the quartets “Quick Blood,” “The Cruel Waters” and “Spiderweb Lead,” the octet “Sparklefrog,” and sextet “Naked And On Fire.” In the past decade, his work composing for wind symphony has produced several works for percussion soli with wind ensembles, starting with the widely-performed marimba concerto “Carbon Paper and Nitrogen Ink” and including works with drum kit soloist (“Zipzap”), a double concerto for two percussionists (“The Rule of Five”) and “Speaking Truth To Power, 2018” for four percussionists and wind band. His other works for winds include “Alien Robots Unite!,” “Raining Bricks,” “Hard Knocks,” and the saxophone concerto “Alternating Current,” which was premiered with Timothy McAllister as soloist. In addition to these works for percussion and wind ensemble, Silverman’s catalog also includes works for chamber ensemble, orchestra, and opera, and have been performed worldwide by such ensembles as The New York City Opera, The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, The Opera Company of Brooklyn, Eighth Blackbird, The Corigliano Quartet, and The Prism Quartet. He also composed the score for “Little Fiel,” which blends stop-motion animation with filmed documentary; in 2018, this film had 50 screenings in 15 countries, winning many awards including Best Original Music at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival.

Four full-CD recordings of Silverman’s music are available and individual compositions of his have also appeared on CDs by the Temple University Wind Symphony, Prism Saxophone Quartet, cellist Amy Sue Barston, Trio Kavak, The Florida State University Percussion Ensemble, and others, all of which are widely available online.

Educated at Yale (Doctor of Musical Arts, 2003), The Vienna Musikhochschule (1994-1995), The University of Miami (Bachelor of Music, 1995) and in private study with microtonal composer Ben Johnston, Silverman is now an Old-Time music enthusiast, performing as an amateur on banjo, fiddle and mandolin. For more information visit adambsilverman.com

About Susan Gubernat

Susan Gubernat, poet and librettist, is the author of The Zoo at Night (Prairie Schooner book prize: University of Nebraska Press), Analog House (Finishing Line Press), and Flesh (The Marianne Moore Prize: Helicon Nine Editions). Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Gargoyle, Michigan Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Scoundrel Time, the San Francisco Chronicle, among others. She wrote the libretto for the opera “Korczak’s Orphans,” (composer: Adam Silverman). Gubernat holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Professor Emerita at California State University, East Bay, she has held artist residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Millay Colony, and the VCCA. She lives in San Francisco where she is a member of the Writers Grotto.

i https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050- here-s-what-you-need-to-know

ii https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-life-distress/2019-2023-gray-whale-unusual-mortality- event-along-west-coast-and

iii https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/

iv https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-keystone-xl-pipeline

vhttps://web.archive.org/web/20090304090506/http://www.lincolncenter.org/press_release/StateTheaterN

amingNews_FINAL_7-9-08.pdf