At their annual ceremony Saturday, October 1, 2022, the Rocky Mountain Southwest Regional Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Jake Runestad one of two prizes in the category of Musical Composition/Arrangement for his True Concord commission and world premiere, Earth Symphony (“Choral”) with libretto by poet Todd Boss. Founding Music Director Eric Holtan noted that, “All of us at True Concord felt we had a very special new work at the Earth Symphony premiere in late February 2022. Each performance was greeted with standing ovations and I continue to hear from our audiences of their embrace of this powerful piece with its climate change message, and how we paired it with that original classical work on climate, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.”

Holtan also noted that Earth Symphony (“Choral”) and Runestad’s Dreams of the Fallen will be recorded by True Concord in May 2023 with details to follow soon. Holtan said, “Just as it’s part of True Concord’s mission to perform the classic repertoire and new works, so recordings are also a key component. Recordings and new works will be refortified in our mission as we head into our 20th anniversary season and beyond through our 25th and we are grateful to our Board, donors and audience for making this possible.”

Holtan also recognized and thanked Alex Kosiorek, Recording Engineer, Central Sound and Arizona PBS. For complete details and credits please see our other blog post about the EMMY nominations here.