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Hawk Run
Text Author:Thomas Piechowski
Date Completed:April 13, 1982
Duration:about 17 minutes
Instrumentation:flute, guitar, violin, viola, 'cello, piano
Characters:
Apollona - mezzo
Jacob - baritone
Ela - lyric soprano
First Performance:the first concert performance on May 9, 1982 at the Westside YMCA in New York City by Encompass Theatre/American Composer/Librettist Lab, the singers were Nancy Cambridge (Apollona), Ray Walters (Jacob) and Charlene Campbell (Ela). In 1983 Hawk Run won the 2nd annual Brooklyn College Competition for Chamber Opera Composition and was given its first staged production by the Brooklyn College Opera Theatre on February 4, 5, 6, 18 and 19, 1983. The singers were Marjorie Patterson (Apollona), Glenn Billingsley (Jacob) and Tonya Tobias (Ela). The director and conductor was William Boswell.
Program Notes:from the 2001 Ohio premiere at Cuyahoga Valley National Park:

The libretto was written by Thomas Piechowski, a friend from my early New York days. The “mystical short-story” of a family of immigrant Polish coal-miners living in central Pennsylvania in 1911 is a true story from his family’s history. In a one-room log cabin Apollona obsessively re-tells the story of a strange visitation to her husband Jacob as they nervously await the overdue return of their daughter Ela.

Throughout my career, really from the moment I escaped the pure misery of high school, I have been supported and inspired by my friends, and far more so than purely professional acquaintances. Timothy Walsh, my guiding star and muse, introduced me to Tom Piechowski who had written Hawk Run with the plan that Ricky Gordon, with whom he had written a number of cabaret songs, would set it to music. When Gordon wasn’t interested he asked me, even though he hadn’t really heard much of my music. It was clear that I would have to set it using some kind of tonal language - at that time considered a dangerous lapse in an environment obsessed with the true path of modernism and progress. I found that I could write something approaching beautiful melody (if I used “simple” enough harmony to go with it) but I wasn’t prepared for the increasingly long list of wishes and assumptions some of the “opera people” had. When it was given the first concert performance on May 9, 1982 at the Westside YMCA in New York City by Encompass Theatre/American Composer/Librettist Lab, the singers were Nancy Cambridge (Apollona), Ray Walters (Jacob) and Charlene Campbell (Ela). They gave me a lot of valuable feedback even though I didn’t use all of it. The instruments were played by close friends Steven Grenholm (violin), David Cerutti (viola), Ben Whittenburg (‘cello) and Joseph Fields (piano) and people I’d just gotten to know who played with the same devotion, Cecilia Sparacio (flute) and Mark Delpriora (guitar) under my direction.
The next year Hawk Run won the 2nd annual Brooklyn College Competition for Chamber Opera Composition and was given its first staged production by the Brooklyn College Opera Theatre on February 4, 5, 6, 18 and 19, 1983. The singers were Marjorie Patterson (Apollona), Glenn Billingsley (Jacob) and Tonya Tobias (Ela). The director and conductor was William Boswell. These performances are the second production as well as the Ohio premiere.