Performances

In ancient Greek philosophy, stoicheia named the elements the world is built from — earth, air, water, fire. In the Sonoran Desert those aren’t abstractions. They’re the mountains on every horizon, the wind that turns the mesquite silver before a storm, the sun that decides how you’ll spend your day.

This program gathers music about how the physical world shapes the people who live in it: the earth and the ranges that surround us; water, and what it means in a dry place; wind moving across open ground; and the transforming power of the sun.

Air is the element that seems least tangible, and it’s the one a chorus knows best. It’s breath. It’s what we turn into sound.