Juventas New Music Ensemble will perform Oliver’s chamber work Is There a Word That Means Return in its September 11 season opener “Memory & Hope.”

With powerful lyrics by author Meghan Guidry, Is There a Word That Means Return? speaks to holidays as moments of heightened awareness of the empty chairs at our tables, from loved ones lost.

Guidry’s autobiographical text mourns the loss of her father, juxtaposing memories of their holiday traditions with loneliness left by his absence. The music (scored for narrator, bass-baritone singer, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion) pairs father and daughter in a wistful duet across space and time, child speaking prose, parent calling back through song. Each has a theme – the father’s slow and lyrical, the daughter’s twinkling and mystical – with a melody reminiscent of a music-box to represent their shared past.

The concert program also includes music by Stephanie Ann Boyd, Joe Jaxson, Cole Reyes and Robert Ruohola.

Saturday, September 11, 8:00pm
Multicultural Art Center
41 East Second St.
East Cambridge, MA
Tickets