♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Beryl> Ladies and gentlemen, please join us for the premiere performance of Marian McPartland's A Portrait of Rachel Carson .

This homage to Carson's book Silent Spring will be performed by the composer herself and the University of South Carolina Symphony under the baton of Maestro Donald Portnoy.

(applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Beryl> How significant is this particular work to you?

Marian> Oh, much more significant than anything I've done so far.

It's something totally different from what I've done before, ♪ and I'm just hoping it will make a dent somewhere that I'll be able to record it.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Marian> Years ago, I read Rachel's book.

And I kept thinking.

I would love to make some kind of protest about the terrible things that are going on.

And I thought, well, the only thing I can do is to ♪ put it into music and play something out of my head.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Marian> I was thinking strictly of her view of the environment ♪ and what she did to make people aware.

that the things they were doing were wrong.

But time went by, and the book ♪ just got left out for a while.

Maybe it will come back in and people will get curious and ♪ start reading it again.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It is a classical piece.

That's the only way I can describe it.

And trying to make statements musically about, ♪ cutting down trees and pesticides and losing so many birds and insects, flowers and things that have, have all been ruined by the things that are going on, especially with pesticides.

Although that's a pretty hard thing to describe musically.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It's definitely an homage to Rachel Carson and hoping that people will ♪ listen and, Well, like with global warming, everything is happening.

I'm just hoping it may stir some people up ♪ to know that terrible things are happening to the environment.

In fact, to the whole world.

So this is just my small contribution ♪ saying musically that terrible things are happening and you better listen.

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