A Forest Unfolding was conceived by Richard Powers, Laura Gilbert, and Jonathan Bagg. It was commissioned by Electric Earth Concerts for premieres on August 12, 2018 in Peterborough, New Hampshire and August 18th at the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Maine.
Four writers—the environmentalists Bill McKibben and Joan Maloof, along with the novelists Richard Powers and Kim Stanley Robinson—selected prose passages and poems on the relations among people and trees.
Prose passages and poems on the relations among people and trees are taken from the Book of Job and the following writers and poets:
Four composers—Eric Moe, Melinda Wagner, Stephen Jaffe, and David Kirkland Garner—set these words into a linked sequence of recitatives and arias. The composers themselves communicated and cooperated with one another throughout the process, sharing thoughts on the relations between the texts, exchanging material and musical ideas, and shaping the structure of the larger piece.
