David Shapiro's "Sumptuous Planet" is a "Secular Mass" that celebrates a scientific view of life and the universe, using texts primarily by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
Compositional Technique
The music for "Sumptuous Planet" draws inspiration from diverse sources such as Scottish jigs and medieval and renaissance polyphony, exploring various choral writing techniques and textures.
Recording & Production
The album "Sumptuous Planet" was recorded in January 2023 at St. Peter's Church in the Great Valley, Malvern, Pennsylvania.
Notable Performances
The work "Sumptuous Planet" premiered on July 8, 2022, at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill during The Month of Moderns, The Crossing's annual summer festival of new music.
Compositional Technique
Each movement of "Sumptuous Planet" takes a word or idea from the Christian Mass and sets it with a text by Richard Dawkins that approaches the concept from a different, scientific perspective.
Composition History
The composer, David Shapiro, found the idea of composing a Mass using words by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist known for his defense of atheism, to be pleasingly paradoxical.
