Instrumentation: violin & piano (12:00)
First Performance: Spectrum NYC
Karen Bentley Pollick, violin & William Susman, piano
A recording by Karen Bentley Pollick and William Susman appears on the album A Quiet Madness.
Aria is adapted from a larger work-in-progress, an opera, called Fordlandia about the struggle for succession of power between Henry Ford and his son Edsel at the Ford Motor Company. The title comes from an aria sung in the opera by Evangeline, Henry’s secretary and mistress for several decades. Henry built her a home down the road from his that included a secret passageway to her room. In this five-part work for violin and piano, the first four sections imagine a dialogue and interaction about their complicated relationship. The fifth and final section of Aria reveals Evangeline’s expression of love and triumph.