Poetry and music combine in NCC show

Updated: September 24, 2012 6:25AM

Many years ago, Carolyn Anderson Surrick and Neal Conan were at a conference in Chicago.

Their rooms were across the hall from each other, and when he heard her practicing her viola da gamba, they struck up a conversation.

She invited Conan — host of National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” program — to read some poetry at their upcoming concert. He agreed, and a partnership was formed.

“It’s a wonderful collaboration. He likes to get out of the studio and we love having him; he is tremendous to work with,” Surrick said.

“When he opens his mouth, people trust him. We heard this the first time we worked with him. The audience feels so comfortable with his voice; they completely go into a comfort zone when he’s reading.”

Surrick is the founder and artistic director of Ensemble Galilei, featuring a variety of instruments and musicians all with the same goal in mind — to play music at the highest possible level, she said.

“Ensemble Galilei was named after Galileo’s dad, who was a composer at the end of the 15th century,” she said. “Vincenzo Galilei and his buddies decided there was not enough passion in music. They decided to recreate music and make it passionate.

“We wanted to play music we felt strongly about and play it well. How we played was more important than what we played. The group at the time was split between groups who had expertise in early music and Irish and Scottish music. It’s been 20 years, but we have maintained those influences in our repertoire.”

North Central College presents “Ensemble Galilei and Neal Conan: A Universe of Dreams” on Feb. 5. The program combines Celtic music, poetry and spectacular stellar images from the Hubble Space Telescope projected on stage as a backdrop.

“A Universe of Dreams” includes poems by Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon, May Sarton and Lucille Clifton. These poems are combined with narrative about the universe to create a program that Conan and Ensemble Galilei debuted in 2004. They also have collaborated on “First Person: Stories from the Edge of the World,” which premiered at the National Geographic Society in 2007.

Conan serves as host and narrator of the program. It’s his task to greet the audience, introduce the music, read the poems, explain and the images and “tell some bad jokes.” When he was first asked to do it, he thought it was a “great idea.”

“I’d never done anything like that before. Who doesn’t want to stand in front of a band? All of us grew up wanting to do that,” he said, laughing. “They made it really easy to do. The musicians are so good; I’m astonished at their ability. It’s so rare for them to make mistakes.”

Surrick plays an instrument called the viola da gamba, which is in no way related to the viola of the violin family, she said. Hers is the “violin of the leg.” It has frets like a guitar and six or seven strings, and is bowed and tuned differently.

“The violin continued to be played and the viola da gamba went out of style around 1750,” she said. “This is an instrument you rarely see played.”

Hers was made in 1995 in London.

Ensemble Galilei’s instrumentation includes a fiddle, viola, Celtic harp, recorder, oboe, whistle, percussion and Surrick’s viola da gamba.

She got the idea to add pictures from space after seeing one of the first Hubble images on a phone card machine in Lincoln, Neb.

“The pictures are in the public domain … I thought, wow, I could do something more meaningful than that,” she said.

They use some of the newest images available, so the program is ever-changing.

“My goal is after the program people walk out of the concert hall and look up at the sky and see it in a new way,” Conan said.

“The idea is to provide a new context to look at the world around us, to see the stars and planets in a new way, to experience them in the context of music and poetry.”

The program is especially appropriate with Valentine’s Day right around the corner.

“Quite a lot of it is about love,” Surrick said. “Because somehow, love and the universe go together. There’s some Shakespeare, some well-known poets and lesser-known poets. It’s a beautiful, beautiful program. It is a perfect thing to do around Valentine’s Day. We’ve done a variety of different shows, and this is truly the most beautiful that we do.”

ENSEMBLE GALILEI AND NEAL CONAN

When: 8 p.m. Feb. 5

Where: Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville

How much: $30 and $40

Contact: Call 630-637-7469 or visit northcentralcollege.edu/showtix

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