Far Cry & Shara Nova - The Blue Hour (CD)

New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records release The Blue Hour, a song cycle written collaboratively by the female composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider; this unique joint vision among a female collective is available October 14, 2022. The cycle was commissioned by, and is performed with, the Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry. (Nova also is featured as vocal soloist.) Set to excerpts from Carolyn Forché's epic poem On Earth, the music follows one woman's journey through the space between life and death via thousands of hallucinatory and non-linear images. Exploring memories of childhood, of war, of love, and of loss, The Blue Hour amplifies the beauty, pain, and fragility of human life from a collective female perspective.

Track List:

Disc: 1

1. The Blue Hour: No. 1, Prologue
2. The Blue Hour: No. 2, Opening
3. The Blue Hour: No. 3, A black map
4. The Blue Hour: No. 4, A memory
5. The Blue Hour: No. 5, A syllable
6. The Blue Hour: No. 6, Angelica-balefire
7. The Blue Hour: No. 7, Canticle
8. The Blue Hour: No. 8, Dark
9. The Blue Hour: No. 9, Early summer’s green plums
10. The Blue Hour: No. 10, Even if by forgetting  - By Shara Nova
11. The Blue Hour: No. 11, Firmament
12. The Blue Hour: No. 12, 1st Refrain
13. The Blue Hour: No. 13, Ghost swift
14. The Blue Hour: No. 14, He told her how
15. The Blue Hour: No. 15, Her hair
16. The Blue Hour: No. 16, I am alone
17. The Blue Hour: No. 17, In the toy store
18. The Blue Hour: No. 18, It appears to be an elegy
19. The Blue Hour: No. 19, J'ai rêvé
20. The Blue Hour: No. 20, Keeping a record  - By Shara Nova
21. The Blue Hour: No. 21, Library lilac
22. The Blue Hour: No. 22, My dear
23. The Blue Hour: No. 23, Nevertheless
24. The Blue Hour: No. 24, Oil soap
25. The Blue Hour: No. 25, Older than clocks
26. The Blue Hour: No. 26, Poppy seed
27. The Blue Hour: No. 27, 2nd Refrain
28. The Blue Hour: No. 28, She heard no one's footsteps
29. The Blue Hour: No. 29, Tendril
30. The Blue Hour: No. 30, The ganglia
31. The Blue Hour: No. 31, The hole
32. The Blue Hour: No. 32, The name
33. The Blue Hour: No. 33, The silence
34. The Blue Hour: No. 34, Twirling
35. The Blue Hour: No. 35, Vesture, vigil
36. The Blue Hour: No. 36, We are as paper
37. The Blue Hour: No. 37, Yet the women
38. The Blue Hour: No. 38, You are the ghost
39. The Blue Hour: No. 39, Zero
40. The Blue Hour: No. 40, 3rd Refrain