Con Vivo Music will celebrate Earth Day weekend with a unique performance of “Not Less Than the Good,” a 60-minute musical sunrise and celebration of morning as embraced by Henry David Thoreau in “Walden” at the Barrow Mansion (83 Wayne St.), this Sunday at 6pm. The concert is free; all ages welcome.

“Not Less Than the Good” simulates a sunrise by combining the meditative playing of the saxophone quartet with ambient synthesizers. The music grows from a single quiet note, adding notes and timbres, growing in fullness and depth, much like the literature does with words (Ed. note: I’m only making that comparison because I wrote a term paper on “Walden” while at NYU).

Underneath this are real, pre-recorded sounds during the pre-dawn and early morning hours at Walden Pond: a chorus of insects, the lone song of dawn’s first bird which is joined by others in a raucous counterpoint, and the splashing of morning swimmers.

And keeping even further in trend with Beyonce, the hour-long performance is punctuated by readings of excerpts from “Walden”, considered a secular prayer of hope for enlightenment, that are narrated by poet J. D. McClatchy.

More info here.

May your ears be delighted,
JCG