June 8 - Celestial Wind: A Concert Featuring Organist Victoria Sirota and Composer Robert Sirota
Photo by Ryuhei Shindo available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/robert-sirota
Celestial Wind
A Concert Featuring Victoria Sirota, Organist
& Robert Sirota, Composer
Presented by
The Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Portland, Maine
Sunday, June 8, 2025 at 2pm
Cathedral Church of St. Luke | 143 State Street | Portland, ME
Suggested Free Will Offering of $15.00
www.stlukesportland.org
“a compelling musical voice of our time”
– The American Organist on Robert Sirota
Portland, ME – On Sunday, June 8, 2025 at 2pm, organist Victoria R. Sirota and composer/pianist Robert Sirota will give a concert titled Celestial Wind, presented by The Cathedral Church of St. Luke’s (Episcopal) in Portland (143 State Street). For the performance, the married musicians – who have been a part of the Searsmont, Maine community since 1986 – have crafted a thoughtful program of music by J.S. Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Robert Sirota.
Victoria Sirota says, “Bob and I have been each other’s primary muse since before we were married over 50 years ago. Over those years he has written more than a dozen works for organ. This one hour recital, which we are calling Celestial Wind, includes music by two composers who have had a strong influence on our musical and spiritual lives: J.S. Bach and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, as well as three Robert Sirota works: Letters Abroad for Piano and Organ (1982), Celestial Wind (1987), and his most recent organ composition, Prayer (2020).”
Over five decades, composer Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernible in all of his work – whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. Writing in the Portland Press Herald, Allan Kozinn asserts: “Sirota’s musical language is personal and undogmatic, in the sense that instead of aligning himself with any of the competing contemporary styles, he follows his own internal musical compass.”
Sharing a long history intertwined with family, faith, and music, Robert and Victoria will join together for the concert’s collaborative highlight, Letters Abroad for Piano and Organ – a nine-movement work written by Robert Sirota in 1982. Around this extensive work, Victoria Sirota will perform J.S. Bach’s Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 686, which references a Lutheran hymn of 1524 written by Martin Luther as a paraphrase of the Biblical Psalm 130; Fanny Mendelssohn’s Präludium für Orgel F-Dur, one of the last pieces Mendelssohn wrote before her marriage to Wilhelm Hensel; Robert Sirota’s 2020 composition Prayer for organ; and his 1987 work Celestial Wind – a work also inspired by Biblical scripture which Victoria premiered in 1987.
The central piece of the program, Letters Abroad, is imbued with feelings Robert Sirota experienced during the summer of 1980 when Victoria traveled abroad to pursue research on Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel while he remained in Massachusetts with their young son, Jonah. The work reflects a collection of musical “postcards” Sirota composed in order to, as he says, “ease the pain of separation” from Victoria. Not only does the piece contain a climax that’s intended as an homage to Fanny Mendelssohn but when the Sirotas collaborated on the recording, Robert and Victoria needed to be physically separated by a distance of 100 feet to successfully capture each individual part. Robert Sirota explains that this divide embodies the central metaphor of the work: “The organ and the piano speak to each other over time and space, and create a sense of separation, and ultimately of being reunited.” In this way, both Letters Abroad and Celestial Wind as a whole reflect the kind of personal and artistic intuition for which Robert Sirota is known.
More about Robert Sirota: Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; Concerts on the Slope; the Chiara, American, Elmyr, Blair and Telegraph String Quartets; the Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, and Cooperstown; Bowdoin Gamper and Bowdoin International Music Festival; and Mizzou International Composers Festival. Recent commissions include Jeffrey Kahane and the Sarasota Music Festival, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Palladium Musicum, American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, Neave Trio, and yMusic, Thomas Pellaton, Carol Wincenc, Linda Chesis, Trinity Episcopal Church (Indianapolis), and Sierra Chamber Society, as well as arrangements for Paul Simon.
Since 2021, Sirota has presented Muzzy Ridge Concerts, an annual series featuring performances by world-class musicians, in his home studio in Searsmont, Maine. Robert Sirota has received grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, NEA, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center. His music is recorded on Legacy Recordings, National Sawdust Tracks, and the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels, and is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Schott, Music Associates of New York, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore. For complete information, visit www.robertsirota.com.
About Victoria R. Sirota: Victoria Sirota, organist, Episcopal priest and author, holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Boston University and Harvard Divinity School. She has studied organ with Andre Marchal in Paris and Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam and has performed organ recitals in the United States, France and Germany. The Rev. Dr. Sirota has taught at Boston University, Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music, and The Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University. Former National Chaplain for the American Guild of Organists and The Association of Anglican Musicians, she is the author of articles, reviews and texts for hymns, cantatas and song cycles. Her book Preaching to the Choir: Claiming the Role of Sacred Musician is available from Church Publishing, and, in addition to recordings on Northeastern and Gasparo labels, her recording of organ works by Robert Sirota Celestial Wind is available from Albany Records.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Searsmont, ME composer Robert Sirota, whose music is described by The Portland Press Herald as “personal and undogmatic,” and organist Victoria R. Sirota, are presented in concert by The Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Portland, Maine. The Sirotas will perform a program titled Celestial Wind, which features Victoria Sirota on organ and Robert Sirota on piano, performing the music of J.S. Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Robert Sirota.
Short description: Composer Robert Sirota, whose music is described as “personal and undogmatic,” (Portland Press Herald), and organist Victoria R. Sirota are presented by St Luke’s Cathedral performing music by J.S. Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Robert Sirota.
Concert details:
Who: Organist Victoria Sirota and Composer Robert Sirota Presented by
St. Luke’s Cathedral, Portland, ME
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Robert Sirota
When: Sunday, June 8, 2025 at 2pm
Where: Cathedral Church of St. Luke, 143 State St., Portland, ME
(Suggested free will offering $15)