“Give Thanks”: A premiere and inspiration

Harvard Arts Beat, November 8th, 2010 — As one who has had the transformative experience of studying in Harvard’s unique chamber music course Music 180 withYehudi Wyner and Daniel Stepner, I am happy to report on what the Boston Globe called the “keenly anticipated” premiere of Yehudi Wyner’s composition, Give Thanks for All Things for orchestra and chorus. The work had its world premiere on Friday, November 5 and Saturday, November 6 at Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory performed by the Cantata Singers and Ensemble and conducted by David Hoose, music director of the Cantata Singers. Give Thanks for All Things is based on two Psalms, poems by Richard Wilbur and Walt Whitman, a passage from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, and the Breton fisherman’s prayer, “Dear Lord be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.”