Performance Transcript: Opening Remarks

Kristen: Hello everyone, and welcome to Northrop. My name is Kristen Brogdon. I’m Northrop’s director of artistic and community programs, and I’m delighted to welcome you. 

I’d like to begin this welcome with gratitude that this performance is made possible by the Anna Heilmaier Foundation and the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Thank you, Minnesota voters. Northrop is part of a public university, rooted in Minnesota, and we are proud of and thankful for our place here. We also acknowledge that this place that many of us call home has a complex and layered history, and not everyone has been served and treated equally throughout that history. Northrop is located on contemporary, traditional, and ancestral homelands of Dakota people. We seek to show up in support of Native and Indigenous Artists, and land acknowledgement is one of the ways we educate our campus and community about our relationships with the land and each other. We are also responding to our history by welcoming EVERYONE to Northrop. You belong here, whether you’re here for the first time or have been attending for decades.

It’s Give to the Max Day! Speaking of gratitude, a donation to our campaign will support arts access to thousands of students across Minnesota through our matinee program. You can donate at givingday.umn.edu. Your support makes a difference!

I’m especially excited that the program tonight will open with the world premiere of a Northrop Centennial Commission prelude for our Northrop Organ composed by Daniel Wohl, performed by John Orfe of Alarm Will Sound, and titled Prelude for an Old Friend. 

We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Liquid Music and it’s my pleasure now to pass the mic to Liquid Music’s Artistic Director Kate Nordstrum!

Kate: Good evening! Tonight’s program is many, many years in the making. Composer Daniel Wohl and I concepted Sun Dogs back in 2019 and were able to secure commissioning funds for the project in 2021. The premiere was with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra two years ago, and we are so grateful to breathe a new life into the works now with Alarm Will Sound – thanks to the support of Dr. Tom von Sternberg, Eve Parker, Tim & Calli Sullivan. The impetus of the project was to allow filmmakers and composers to build new works together from the ground up – very different from a traditional film scoring relationship. I encourage you to spend time with the program notes to learn more about each piece’s creation, as well as Liquid Music’s role in developing the platform. Our hope is to continue Sun Dogs as an ongoing series of new music & film commissions.

We’ll open the program with the prelude by Daniel Wohl for Northrop’s organ, leading to an overture created by Alarm Will Sound, then the films will begin. Please enjoy.