“The snow is melting into music.” – John Muir
Rocky Ridge Music Center is proud to announce the commission of a song cycle by Composer-in-Residence Keith Fitch. This bold new work, entitled The Range of Light, incorporates words by the great naturalist John Muir, father of the National Park Service and founder of the Sierra Club. Equally celebrated in his native country of Scotland and his adopted home of America, Muir profoundly shaped the fields of environmentalism and ecology through his tireless political activism on behalf of this country’s pristine lands. He was also a prolific writer who eloquently documented his adventures in the wilderness, and The Range of Light draws from the over 300 works published by Muir. The work will be premiered in summer 2017 at Rocky Ridge, celebrating our 75th year and the 100th anniversary of the National Park system inspired by Muir’s work. It is our hope that The Range of Light will be performed in other National Parks throughout the country, uplifting the history of the park system and the work of John Muir to preserve so many of our natural treasures.
Keith Fitch’s music has been described as “gloriously luminous” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). He is the recipient of the 2016 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as an Individual Artist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fromm Music Foundation Commission, a Copland House Residency Award, and multiple awards from ASCAP. Fitch currently serves as Head of the Composition Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
