Program Note:
Clip info:
Forward Into Light
August 4, 2023
Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium
Cristian Macelaru, conductor
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra
Program Note:
Forward Into Light is a meditation on perseverance, bravery, and alliance. The piece was inspired by the American women suffragists -- Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frances E.W. Harper, Ida B. Wells, Zitkála-Šá, and Mabel Lee Ping-Hua, to name but a few – who devoted their lives to the belief that women were human beings and therefore entitled to equal rights and protections under the law of the United States of America.
I wrote the music thinking about what it means to believe in something so deeply that one is willing to endure harassment, isolation, assault, incarceration, force-feedings, and life endangerment to fight for it. Forward Into Light does not attempt to tell the story of the American women’s suffrage movement, but rather to distill the emotional and psychological contours of faith, doubt, and what it means to persevere.
Forward Into Light features a musical quote from “March of the Women,” composed in 1910 by British composer and suffragette Dame Ethel Smyth. The anthem of the women’s suffrage movement, “March of the Women” was sung in homes and halls, on streets and farms, and on the steps of the United States Capitol.
The title of the piece derives from a suffrage slogan made famous by the banner that suffragist Inez Milholland carried while riding a whitehorse to lead the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade on March 3, 1913, in Washington, D.C.:
“Forward, out of error
Leave behind the night
Forward through the darkness
Forward into light!”
The Boston Globe
"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s impressionistic, 19th Amendment-inspired “Forward Into Light” was a relatively recent addition to the program, as a commissioned piece from Tania León wasn’t ready in time. The orchestra performed it recently at Tanglewood, and the Symphony Hall setting allowed the piece’s subtly shimmering textures to be realized in crisper detail than in the Koussevitzky Music Shed performance. The sound moved in oceanic swells, but the heartbeat pulse at the piece’s center was ever steady, anchored by harp, celesta, and percussion."
Boston Classical Review
[“Graceful lyricism”] also marked Snider’s Forward Into Light, a 2019 New York Philharmonic commission commemorating the centennial of the 20th Amendment. Essentially a meditation on, in the composer’s words, “faith, doubt, and what it means to persevere,” the fifteen-minute essay passes by like a dream, sometimes hazy, sometimes lucid, often accompanied by pulsing harp and percussion figures…Snider’s mastery of both the orchestra and her material is never in doubt, as the music’s whistle tones and col legno strokes, as well as her deft handling of a quotation from Ethel Smyth’s “March of the Women,” attest."
Boston Musical Intelligencer
Sarah Kirkland Snider introduced Forward into the Light (2020) with warm, articulate words. The BSO’s delivery of her intelligently wrought contribution to the NY Phil’s Project 19, a quarter-hour musical depiction of the challenge, solidarity, sacrifice and passion of the Suffrage Movement, wafted with kindly tentative, bold, and ultimately riveting moments…Forward shimmers with feeling throughout, effectively conveying the profound ideas brought to fruition by the bravery and strength of the women who prevailed.”
The Wall Street Journal
"Mr. [Cristian] Mǎcelaru, leading [the Aspen Festival Chamber Symphony] in an ensemble that was “chamber” in name only, gave [a] persuasive [account] of a new extroverted [work]: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Forward Into Light” (2020)..."
Seen and Heard international
"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s ‘Forward into Light’ [is] beautifully orchestrated… The sonorities are clearly modern yet not dogmatically so, as gently introduced waves intersect and overlap in a luminous soundscape. Coloristic nuances are occasionally rich, though often just delicately suggested. The [Boston Symphony Orchestra] instrumentalists seemed to enjoy playing music that is neither rough nor overly sentimental, yet deeply meaningful.”
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
“Snider captivates… [Forward Into Light] begins with shimmering bell-like sonorities that recur several times in contrast to rich, dense sounds building to climactic expressions. …The lighter bell sounds and the woodwind families contrast with the strong, polyphonic sonorities of the full orchestra evoking hope and assertive activity… an ardent celebration of [the suffrage movement’s] success, with Andris Nelsons drawing out the full range of the Boston Symphony’s firm ensemble and rich colors.”
The Boston Globe
“…[This Tanglewood] concert was the stuff of dreams and postcards. Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider made a few remarks on her piece, the prismatic “Forward into Light,” and the [Boston Symphony] orchestra weaved urgency and impressionistic spaciousness into the music.”
NJ Arts
"New works of classical music come and go. But Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Forward into Light” is here to stay, a timeless and deeply felt anthem inspired by American women suffragists. The Princeton-based composer — who has a unique, personal style — is reshaping the literature of American music with transformative works that seamlessly combine emotionally impactful storytelling with well-knit, contrapuntal textures. “Forward Into Light” opens with three motivic ideas narrated through violins, harp and violas, and builds to a collaborative orchestral voice of melodic, layered textures. The storytelling is vivid, immersive and direct, and arranged through a wide-angled musical lens. Snider’s craftsmanship is developed with stylistic assurance and musical intelligence.”
San Francisco Chronicle
"['Forward Into Light' is a] tenderly rapturous tone poem."
San Francisco Classical Voice
"Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 'Forward Into Light' (2020)...began with the faintest of flute flurries giving way to lyrical modules making their glittery points in a tonal language. Though this is not a minimalist work, the winds and brass frequently simulate digital delay effects, with notes and phrases echoing away into silence."
The New York Times
“A gem…With music that was by turns fragile and ferocious — and that also boasted touches of mordant wit — “Forward Into Light” ably communicated its story about new ideas struggling for space…[conductor Jaap van Zweden] relished hairpin turns during which the music throttled into tutti writing, [managing] Snider’s quick dynamic shifts with a Hollywood sound-mixer’s feel for drama… Sometimes Snider’s Sturm und Drang suggested early feminist boldness, or corresponding public sphere controversy… But even in the densest moments, you could discern Snider’s feel for wry commentary... And so, just as in her ecologically oriented “Mass for the Endangered,” the composer’s intellectual concerns dovetailed smoothly with the lush, inviting score…the audience greeted the new piece with enthusiasm….a reminder enough of Snider’s emergent career.”
Concerto.net
"['Forward Into Light'] possessed a sheer musical attractiveness which, from the start, was entrancing. The motives were rarely played alone. Instead, they rose up out of each other, each ascending theme and each undulating under-theme pressing each other forward, sometimes forming new constructions, but always going back to the original phrases. Not once did Ms. Snider’s music lag or show academic development per se. Rather the instruments goaded each other onward, forward to a series of crescendos into an emotional climax. If pictures were the goal...one might conceive it as waves engendering waves, or creation begetting creations, or even a Darwinesque image of evolution."
Bachtrack.com
"At first audition, ['Forward Into Light'] seemed a series of intersections between various sonic waves, several of them harp induced, at times more forcefully coloured, otherwise nuances just gently suggested. The idiom in this piece for a large orchestra was definitely “modern,” but far from being aggressively so, proving the composer’s gift for meaningful orchestration."
ClassicalSource.com
"At the start of ['Forward Into Light'], soft rising violin figures and a canon initiated by lower strings combine with the glistening harp, setting the table for development throughout the fourteen-minute piece. Jaap van Zweden ably steered the Philharmonic through fascinating twists and turns, quirky rhythms and dynamic contrasts. The colorful orchestration includes regal touches from the trumpets, a brief but lovely clarinet tune, sonorous cello melodies and a wide range of sounds from percussion. The most unifying element was Nancy Allen’s outstanding playing as her harp returned time after time to lead, connect and punctuate the music. Toward the end, the oboes offer a quote from Dame Ethel Smyth’s March of the Women...[and the] original ideas return, bringing the work full-circle."
Film Festival Traveler
"The program began promisingly with the remarkable, marvelously performed world premiere of a new commission, the beautifully orchestrated 'Forward Into Light' by the American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider."
