Conference of the Birds

EEC’s first in-person concert in over a year celebrates summer solstice with the return of live music. The program features Conference of the Birds, a quartet with narrator by 2021 GRAMMY winning composer Christopher Theofanidis and poet Melissa Studdard that was inspired by the Persian poem which chronicles the quest of the world’s birds to find a new leader. Mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil joins the ensemble for songs by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. Also on the program will be a spring-like quartet by the young W.A. Mozart, and Four Indigenous Portraits for flute and strings by one of America’s most communicative mid-century composers: William Grant Still. The ensemble includes Gabriela Diaz and Jennifer Elowitch, violins; Mickey Katz, cello; Jonathan Bagg, viola and Laura Gilbert, flute.