This concert focused on the environment features the world premiere of Praeordinatus Ut Astra Sacrificia Nostra ("Fore-Ordained As Stars Our Sacrifices") by MIT alumnus and Tony Award-winning composer Jamshied Sharifi, commissioned for the Linde Music Building's opening season. The title comes from W. S. Merwin's poem "For a Coming Extinction," which addresses human-caused mass species extinction.

The program includes In Praise of the Humpback, arranged by Fred Harris and performed in memory of biologist and environmentalist Roger Payne, who discovered humpback whale songs in 1967. Sharifi's To the Light, to the Flame, inspired by Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day," joins other works for small and large ensembles celebrating nature's beauty and power. Remarks from MIT President Sally Kornbluth complete the event.

Program

Miguel Zenón (b.1976): Summit (2025)

MIT Wind Ensemble 

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Jamshied Sharifi ‘83 (b.1960): To The Light, To The Flame (2014)*

Brass

Dedicated to the memory of Keith and Debra Stransky

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Satoshi Yagisawa (b.1975): Divertimento (2006)

V. Arioso

VI. Feroce

MIT Wind Ensemble Flutes

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Alexandre Glazounow (1865-1936): Quartet for Saxophones (1932)

IV. Variation à la Chopin

MIT Wind Ensemble Saxophone Quartet 

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André Lafosse (1890-1975) arr. Michael Peters (G): Epithalame for Suite Impromptu (1948/arr.2025)

MIT Wind Ensemble Brass 

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Paul Halley text by Wendell Berry (b.1952): What Stood Will Stand (1996)

MIT Chamber Chorus, Ryan Turner, conductor 

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Peter Godart ‘15, ‘19, ‘21: Piano Improvisation

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Arr. F. Harris, with chorale by Jamshied Sharifi: In Praise of the Humpback Whale (2019) 

Humpback whales, MITWE, MIT Concert Choir, MIT Chamber Chorus, Peter Godart, piano

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Remarks: Dr. Sally Kornbluth, MIT President

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Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935) arr. Evan Ziporyn: Corta Jaca (1895/arr. 2023)  

MIT Wind Ensemble Clarinets with Evan Ziporyn (bass clarinet), Laura Grill Jaye (ukelele), Emily Albornoz (guitar), and Frank Yang (pandeiro) 

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Remarks: Jamshied Sharifi ‘83

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Jamshied Sharifi ‘83: Praeordinatus Ut Astra Sacrificia Nostra (“Fore-Ordained As Stars Our Sacrifices) (2025, World Premiere) 

MITWE, MIT Concert Choir, MIT Chamber Chorus, and guest vocalists

Notes

Zenón | Summit

This piece started off as a Brass Fanfare, and it was specifically written as an opener for tonight’s show. I was shooting for something that made a statement right away, while also using the idea of “groove” as a driving force. I eventually started to think about Brass Bands from various musical traditions (like the ones in New Orleans or in the Balkans, for example) and tried to incorporate that feeling into the composition. The title sort of has two meanings. The first is a mountain top, or the top of a structure (which is where the ensemble will be placed for tonight’s performance). The second one is a gathering of great minds and great leaders, which is what MIT feels like to me.

- Miguel Zenón

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Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. | To the Light, To the Flame

I wrote “To The Light, To The Flame” in 2015, as a response to the loss of two friends, both around my age, both unexpected losses. It is a meditation on the fragility of our lives, on the paradoxical sense of them being both long and brief, and on the need and wish and desire to live presently, fully, and with intention. It was a gift to the M.I.T. Wind Ensemble and to Fred Harris, and it gave me great pleasure that it found a place as the opening of MIT’s 2020 online commencement certain during the pandemic, a time of loss and uncertainty. While writing the piece I came back several times to Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.” It was in some way a guide to the composition. I wish the M.I.T Class of 2020 the best at this threshold in their lives.

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Halley | What Stood Will Stand 

Paul Halley composed What Stood Will Stand for a service at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine when Wendell Berry gave the sermon. The piece is a “primal Sabbath’s hymn” that celebrates the good and wholesome things that Berry prophesies “will stand, though all be fallen.” Halley punctuates that hopeful promise with many ecstatic Alleluias, concluding with the Nicene Creed’s chanted promise of “the life of the world to come.” Follow along with the lyrics here.

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Gonzaga/arr. Ziporyn | Corta Jaca

Composed by Chiquinha Gonzaga in 1895 and originally titled Gaúcho, Corta Jaca 

(roughly “Cut the Jackfruit”) is a maxixe—a vibrant dance form blending European polka with Afro-Brazilian rhythms, laying the foundation for choro and samba. My arrangement for multiple clarinets is based on the version recorded by Abel Ferreira, who helped define Brazilian clarinet playing in the mid-20th century. I’m thrilled to perform the piece with my fellow MIT clarinetists, many of whom first played it with me during the MIT Wind Ensemble’s 2023 tour of Brazil.

- Evan Ziporyn

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Sharifi | Praeordinatus Ut Astra Sacrificia Nostra (“Fore-Ordained As Stars Our Sacrifices)

Layla Sakamoto Sharifi is a student, writer, and musician living in New York City

Lyrics

Halley | What Stood Will Stand 

Wendell Berry from “Sabbaths”

What stood will stand, though all be fallen, The good return that time has stolen. Though creatures groan in misery,

Their flesh prefigures liberty

To end travail and bring to birth

Their new perfection in new earth.

At word of that enlivening

Let the trees of the wood all sing

And every field rejoice. Let praise

Rise up out of the ground like grass.

What stood, whole, in ev’ry piecemeal Thing that stood, will stand though all fall.

Field and woods and all in them Rejoin the primal Sabbath’s hymn

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Et expecto resurrectionem motuorum.

Et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen. Alleluia. 

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And I look for the resurrection of the dead,

And the life of the world to come. Amen. Alleluia

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