I came across a nice little story here about the famous actor James Earl Jones' performance last weekend in "A Lincoln Portrait" in Gettysburg. "A Lincoln Portrait" is of course the famous musical work written by composer Aaron Copland in 1942 as both a tribute to Lincoln and as a way of comforting the nation during WWII.If you've never heard a performance of "A Lincoln Portrait" do yourself a favor and attend one. The music is stirring and quite lovely, but the narration which accompanies the music is powerful, especially if read by a good dramatic voice. I've attended two such performances in recent months and will do so again.
While he's best known as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, he is a brilliant actor who has been in films such as Matewan, Field of Dreams, and some of the "Dr Jack Ryan" movies by Tom Clancy. He is also behind the resonant voice of "This is CNN."
I'm sorry I didn't know about this performance in Gettysburg ahead of time. I'm sure it was magnificent.
Yes, that would have been a performance worth attending. But you can more than make up for it with the studio recording of the Portrait that Jones did a few years back. Great sound, superb orchestration, and of course that stentorian delivery. Here's the listing on Amazon:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Portraits-Freedom-Music-Copland-Harris/dp/B0000006YT