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AMHERST, Mass.—Lew Spratlan, who on Tuesday received a Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera, Life Is a Dream, will premiere Two Orchestral Sketches in Buckley Recital Hall at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 16. The Amherst College Orchestra, under the direction of Lanfranco Marcelletti, will perform both pieces. The concert is free and open to the public.
Spratlan’s Life Is a Dream, which received its premiere at Amherst in January, was written in 1978. "My style has actually evolved a lot since then," says Spratlan. These sketches, he adds, "are an extreme illustration of the changes." He notes that the second sketch, "Prague Song," in particular, is "more tonal." Spratlan based it on a six-note scrap of drunken song that awoke him and his wife Melinda in the middle of the night during a visit to the Czech Republic. The first sketch, "Tripping," represents the "different ways that people fall down."
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