Open Road marks my fifth collaboration with the American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892). I respond keenly to Whitman's very personal vision, a fusion of the spiritual and the physical, and his strongly rhythmic language, echoing the cadences of the King James Bible. In Open Road, Whitman creates his own Adam, before the fall: life-embracing, open-hearted, on an epic journey, rejoicing in the earthly paradise he finds around him.
Whitman's long lines and purple passages are a challenge to set and to sing. The soloists deliver the more personal, incantatory lines, with the choir responding, shading, interfering, echoing. The essential relationships in the poem—those between man and woman, between the individual and the collective, and between our dual masculine and feminine natures—are embodied by the male and female soloists, in combination with the ensemble. These forces, with their rich compositional possibilities, connect back to the oratorio tradition, one beloved in English Canada since Whitman's days.
Performed by:
Shannon Mercer (soprano)
Geoffrey Sirett (baritone)
Choir 21
Virtuoso String Orchestra
Tonu Kaljuste (conductor)