Expressions

This work,Expressions, began as an idea by Music Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Neal Gittleman, to create an artistic work that puts to music the poetry of Sierra Leone, a winner of the Ohio Governor's Award for the Arts. Working closely together, Steven Winteregg and Sierra Leone used Miriam Rosenthal, an early administrator of the Dayton Philharmonic and namesake of the Miriam Rosenthal Foundation for the Arts that commissioned the work, as a unifying idea, discovering eight words often used to describe her: Tenacious, Graceful, Radiant, Humorous, Inspiring, Worn, Jubilant, and Dynamic. Each word a movement, they are performed in a continuous manner without break, and reflect how Miriam Rosenthal worked but also parts of every human being's life experiences. The outer movements are for orchestra alone and can serve separately as a wonderful opening work on a program. Neal Gittleman said of the work that it is “a great new addition to the orchestral and choral repertoire” and that “there is nothing like this piece.”