Wednesday, October 21, 2026  |  7:30 pm
Perkinson Recital Hall
Modlin Center for the Arts

This is a one-hour program with no intermission. 

Please note: The audience will be invited to join in communal singing in the final movement of the performance. Please follow responsible health practices. Masking is encouraged.

Excerpt from Two Broods: Springfield, IL, Brood XIII, just past the parking spot (2024)
Stephen Vitiello

Concert for the Trees (2022)
Gina Biver

For soprano and baritone voices, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, bass and piano
Recorded live at Spacebomb Studios

Solo drums
Scott Clark

Threnody (Sikuigvik) (2015)
Matthew Burtner

Excerpt from reedbed (2018)
Steve Ashby


En Masse (2026)
Sara Bouchard
    I. Air
    II. Wood
    III. Soil
    IV. Fire
    V. Breath

Scott Clark, drums and percussion
Kristen Melzer, conductor
The En Masse Singers:
Sopranos: Maya Collins, Ashley Larson, Helena Nuckols
Altos: Claudia Andrade, Cassie Machamer, Kristen Melzer
Tenors: Max Carter Goldsmith, Sam Robinson, Vincent Sanfilippo

Basses: Michael “MJ” Huynh, James Matens, Nico Morandi-Zerpa

Field recordings were collected by the composer at VCU Rice Rivers Center in Charles City, VA, The Baliles Center for Environmental Education in Montross, VA, and the Visual Arts Center of Richmond’s community garden.

As we listen to and enjoy the sounds of the landscape, let us acknowledge the indigenous peoples of Virginia and express our gratitude for their continued stewardship of these lands and waterways over many generations.

En Masse was created in partnership with the fluxART residency directed by Maoya Bassiouni with ecosystem data courtesy the University of Michigan Biological Station. The project was supported by FLUXNET through the NSF Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations program (AccelNet Award No. 2113978) with additional support by VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, VCUarts and Longwood University’s Baliles Center for Environmental Education. En Masse premiered at The Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) in Corvallis, OR in January, 2026. This performance is generously supported by the VCU Rice Rivers Center.

Note: This movement features bird songs that have been transcribed from the artist’s recordings of individual birds in Virginia and combined with common bird mnemonics used by birders. Specific species are identified below.

[Bird chatter: chestnut-sided warbler, carolina wren, northern cardinal, prairie warbler, tufted titmouse, pine warbler]

Maids maids maids put on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle-ettle! [song sparrow]

Maids maids maids put on your tea kettle-ettle-ettle-ettle!

[repeat]

Drink your tea! / Tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle [eastern towhee/carolina wren]

Drink your tea! / Sip-a-tea, sip-a-tea, sip-a-tea, sip-a-tea [eastern towhee/carolina wren]

Drink your tea. 

The Earth it turns, the sun it climbs. / Pleased! / Cheerily, cheer up, cheerily [American robin]

The heart it ticks, the days go by. / Pleased pleased pleased!

Pleased pleased pleased to meet you! [chestnut-sided warbler]

[Bird chatter]

Here I am! Look at me! I'm up here! In a tree! [red-eyed vireo]

Over here (Sweet!) up in the canopy, (Sweet weet weet!) [northern cardinal]

Look at me (Sweet!) in all my panoply. (Sweet weet weet!)

Over here (Where?) up in the canopy, (My, you look fine!)

Look at me (Where?) in all my panoply. (Oh! My, you look fine.)

The Earth it turns, the sun it climbs.

Drink your tea! / Tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle

Drink your tea! / Sip-a-tea, sip-a-tea, sip-a-tea, sip-a-tea

Weather? Weather? What about the weather?

The Earth it turns, the sun it climbs.

Weather? Weather? What about the--

The heart it ticks, the days go by.

What about the weather? The weather? [repeat]

The Earth it turns, the sun it climbs,

The heart it ticks, the days go by. The days, the days go--

The Earth it turns, the sun it climbs.

The heart it ticks, the days go by like notches on a stick.

(Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick)

The date grows late and I must flee!

Must flee! Must flee! Must flee! (Tick tick tick)

I cannot wait for I must fly!

Must fly! Must fly! Must fly! (Tick tick tick)

The wind is high, the trees are bare,

I'll see you where the weather's fair,

We'll be all together there. (Tick tick tick)

All together, all together, all together,

all together, all together, all togeth–

II. WOOD

The light.

Ah…

The light.

Ah…

The light.

(We eat the light.)

The light.

The light, the carbon.

The light, the carbon.

Ah…

From where I stand I see the length of time

Throughout my veins I can sense so many things.

Ah…

We eat the light that touches our skin that visits our world from our nearest star.

[repeat]

We swallow carbon, building our skin. 

[repeat]

We eat the light. We breathe carbon.

III. SOIL

Pulse! Pulse! Pulse! Pulse!

Im-pulse! Im-pulse! Im-pulse! Im-pulse!

Ah…

Sing the signal! Sing Sing the signal! Sing

Pulse Sing Pass Sing Sign - ing Pulse Sing Pass Sing

[repeat]

Ah... (Sing the signal)

Pulse! Pass the message.

Pass! Pass the message.

[repeat]

Sing the signal, pass the message

[repeat with many variations]


Pulse! Pulse! Pulse! Pulse!

Pulse Sing Pass Sing Sign - ing Pulse Sing Pass Sing

[repeat]

Ah… 

Pulse! Pass the message.

Pass! Pass the message.

[repeat]

Pulse! (Ah) Pulse! (Ah) Pulse! (Ah) Pulse! (Ah)

Sing Ah Sing Ah Sing Ah Sing Ah

Ah…

Pulse! Pulse! Pulse! Pulse!

Pulse! Pulse! Pulse! Pulse!


IV. FIRE


It starts with a catch in my chest.

(Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah) 

Fire! Fire in my heart. (ooh-oh-ah)

Fire ascending. Fire!

Smoke in the skies,

Temperatures rise.

Heavy in my heart. / I feel it in my neck and head / Tension in my heart and stomach.


Rapid thoughts going nowhere, (ooh-oh-ah)

Exhaustion, unable to act.

Shallow breath, incomprehension,

A heaviness that I can’t shake off.

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah / I feel stuck between two panes of glass.

Orange haze (Pressure in my chest)

Bleak gray landscapes (Tightness in my shoulders)

Blues and blacks and reds (Coldness spreading through limbs)

Hmmm / It’s a pressure in my chest, like the kind you feel when you’re hurt by someone you love.

Future! / Heavy weight on my ribcage / dusty, fragmented

Fire! / Clenched jaw, copper taste in my mouth / stark, shifted

Fire! / I worry about my kids / desperate, unbreathable

Fire! / and their future / squeezed, extreme 

Future! Fire! Fire! Fire!

[repeat]

(Spoken:)

- It's an existential fear about the fate of other people I love. Chest pressure, I can't speak up.
- It's a kind of choiceless grief that weighs on my shoulders. It's a lack of comprehension; this planet is a miracle and our biodiversity is a privilege to witness. How can we be so cruel to it?
- I think of red for fires and rising temperatures. I also think of gray and brown. 

- It feels hopeless and inevitable. It’s something I have to shove down or I am constantly anxious and worried.
- There’s a lot of tightness in my body that I am forever trying to release. I feel it in my shoulders and in my neck and head. It freezes my muscles and makes it hard to move.
- Anxiety around the urge for action, the scientific evidence that some humans try to negate. 

- Disasters looming. People on rooftops, hanging on to trees. A dog barking and a woman sorting through wet belongings. 

- Irregular temperature shifts, seasonal cycles that are less stable and less regular, storms, floods, extreme temperatures. 

- Disbelief, dread, disassociation, grief. vulnerable, parched, that orange haze in the sky from canadian wildfires. 

- Anxiety in my nose and stomach. I try. I try. I'm trying.
- Grief is there, immediately. Fear, then grief. Sadness of a bottomless sort, waiting. I know it is oceanic, others are there too, but it is so vast that we will never swim all the way across.
- Red and brownblue -- there is some green in the brownblue and it is not a nice green. A bad smell. Stomach is in knots, like I’m about to take a test I’m not prepared for.

[The following section is a loose sonification of data from the U. of Michigan Biological Station showing the increase in carbon in the atmosphere (measured in parts per million) over a span of sixteen years.] 

Ooh / Twenty ten / three hundred eighty seven

Oh / Twenty fifteen / four hundred and two

Ah / Twenty twenty / Four hundred fifteen

It is written in the data that the climate is changing.

It is clear from the evidence that the sooner we act 

The more lives will be saved, the more life we will save.

The work is in our hands.

V. Breath 

Will you breathe with me? 

Feel your lungs
expand...

...and contract.

Feel the oxygen enliven your cells... 

...all the way down
to your toes.

Focus that energy
within you...

…and push it out. Let it radiate like a wave.

Find your own rhythm…

…as we exchange pulses with each other.

Now, if it feels right, let your vocal chords vibrate with your breath.

You’re a part of this piece now.

Please join us in singing.

[With audience:]

Breathing, breathing is singing. 

Singing is weaving: giving, receiving.

Singing is breathing.

Breathing is singing. 

(Over, under, over, under / Breathing and singing…)

Singing is weaving: giving, receiving.

(Over, under, over, under / …and weaving with warp and weft)

Singing is breathing.


Breathing is singing. 

(The seeds are tucked under the ground…)

Singing is weaving: giving, receiving.

(...where they will remember the spring.)

Singing:

Let’s be a forest, a forest, a forest.

Ah..

Ah... / Breathing is song. Singing is touch. Touching is care. Caring is healing.

Ah…