David Longstreth Song of the Earth

David Longstreth's Song of the Earth is a song cycle for orchestra and voices - performed by Longstreth with his band Dirty Projectors and the Berlin-based chamber orchestra s t a r g a z e. The album also features Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Steve Lacy, Patrick Shiroishi, Anastasia Coope, Tim Bernardes, Ayoni, Portraits of Tracy, and the author David Wallace-Wells. Longstreth wrote the first draft of Song of the Earth in six "manic" weeks for a commission arranged by s t a r g a z e, feeling disoriented, but also galvanized, by the moment he was in: the pandemic chaos, the "radical psychedelia" of new fatherhood, the novelty of writing for large ensemble. He then spent three years revising, rewriting, rearranging, and recording in studios and homes in the Netherlands, Los Angeles, and New York City. Song of the Earth marks Longstreth's biggest-yet foray into the field of concert music. It received it's US premiere in a March 2024 sold-out performance at Disney Hall in Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic. Longstreth says that while Song of the Earth, "is not a 'climate change opera,'" he wanted to "find something beyond sadness: beauty spiked with damage. Acknowledgement flecked with hope, irony, humor, rage." David Longstreth is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, producer. He started the band Dirty Projectors, and is known for collaborations with Solange, Björk, Kanye West, and others. s t a r g a z e is a European orchestral collective of contemporary musicians, an ever-evolving project marrying modern composition with alternative attitudes and sounds, working in innumerable collaborations with renowned artists and locations, continually closing redundant gaps between classical and popular music. s t a r g a z e has worked in the past with Terry Riley, John Cale, Julia Holter, Lee Ranaldo, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and many others.