GHS Choir to Perform Song Cycle by Emmy and Grammy-Award Winner Rob Mathes in Year-End Concert

GHS Alum Pens Composed and Arranged Piece Designed to Capture Experience of Senior Class – Including His Daughter, Emma

Greenwich High School’s Combined Choirs will celebrate the end of the school year with a very special concert on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church, 1101 Bedford Street, Stamford, Conn., at 8:00 p.m.  Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated musician (and GHS parent) Rob Mathes has written a song cycle entitled “Far From Here,” that celebrates this year’s senior class and captures the unique mix of excitement and uncertainty that defines this landmark moment in their lives.

Tickets for the concert are $20 for general admission and $10 for students, and are available at the door or from participating students. Mathes, a 1981 GHS graduate, has long discussed the idea of a commission with Patrick Taylor, the GHS director of choirs and program associate for music. Emma’s upcoming graduation, he said, “represented the perfect opportunity to make it happen.”

“I just wanted to write a piece that presented exactly how the seniors felt,” Mathes said, “I remember that feeling acutely. You are thrilled to be going to college, and yet it is a poignant time. Some of those people you are literally not going to see until your 10-year reunion. You are leaving a family, and it is thrilling, and you are ready to go, but it is also terrifying and sad and it’s all these conflicting things at the same time.”

The piece opens with a movement titled “Yesterday/My Home,” which commemorates not only this moment in time, but the glass hallway that serves as an iconic symbol of GHS. “I refer to the glass hallway as a windowed train that carries these students through these crucial years.” Mathes said. The second movement, entitled “Where Shall I Go,” is more self-explanatory. “It’s basically asking the question that so many of these kids are asking, ‘What does the future hold for me?”

The third and final movement was born out of a piece of advice Patrick Taylor gave the kids at a concert Mathes attended. “He was basically saying goodbye to his seniors, and he told them to just keep singing, to just keep being involved in music in some way. I think it stayed with me subconsciously and I wrote this movement called “You Will Find Me Singing.”

The overall piece, Mathes said, is written in a very approachable style, and bookended by an anthem-like chorale. “There are many unison melody lines and almost folk oriented harmonies. It is a cycle of these three connected songs and we end where we begin, with a chorale in D Major that communicates the cycle’s prevailing message. ‘Far from here is a hope spring eternal. Far from here and I must go.’”

“We are really thrilled to have someone of Mr. Mathes’ talent and creativity to come in and help us create this original song cycle for our year-end concert,” said Patrick Taylor, the GHS director of choirs and program associate for music.  “Rob has always been an enthusiastic parent, but to work with him in a professional capacity has been incredibly inspiring.  We hope that the audience is as moved by this concert as we have been preparing for it.”

In the end, Mathes said, this piece is all about the hearts, souls and dreams of the choir delivering it. “These are very much heart on your sleeve songs. And the piece is entirely and completely written for these beautiful kids and their dedicated and gifted Choral Director, Mr. Taylor.”

Rob Mathes is an Emmy-winning and Grammy-nominated arranger/composer and music producer. He has produced recordings by Rod Stewart, Carly Simon, Lou Reed, Bettye Lavette, Vanessa Williams, Matthew Morrison and the young band Panic At The Disco. He has arranged music for artists all over the stylistic spectrum, from Elton John to Yo Yo Ma, Mary J. Blige to Tony Bennett, from Luciano Pavarotti and Renée Fleming to Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Bono, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and Jay Z among many others. He’s written songs for Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville and The Rascal Flatts and he is currently co-producing Sting’s new record, their third together. He wrote String arrangements for Bruce Springsteen’s last record “Wrecking Ball” and performed with him on the 2012 Grammy Awards. He musically directed the Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial for President- Elect Barack Obama and every Kennedy Center Honors program on CBS TV for the past decade. He has recently written pieces for Conductor Leonard Slatkin and both The Nashville Symphony and The Los Angeles Philharmonic and has just finished a new record of his own songs called “Flesh and Spirit.”  For more information on Rob Mathes, visit www.robmathes.com.