A Time For Renewal

For the first time in well over a year, I’m preparing to play in a public concert. Reflecting our current reality, this will be a performance shared with an appropriately distanced and masked audience of 50 (already maxed out) and also to an online audience via live-stream. My three colleagues and I will be continuing our annual Palm Sunday tradition of performing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at Covenant Presbyterian Church in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. Click here for details.

My emotions around this performance are raw and multi-faceted, unsurprisingly. I feel as if I’m beginning to slowly emerge from hibernation…forced hibernation at that. I must admit that there have been several times during our rehearsals where tears have come…mostly from the joy of simply being with friends and valued colleagues and reacquainting ourselves with this monumental chamber work.

Though I’ve performed the Messiaen more than any other work (by far), this year’s performance brings a particular poignancy and feeling of connection to the music…as the quartet was created in the midst of a period of loss and suffering during WW II, so too we find ourselves experiencing those things almost seventy years later. So many have lost and continue to lose so much during the pandemic. How can I possibly begin to fathom the enormity of it all?

I suppose for myself I will allow Messiaen’s roadmap of transcendent hope to show me the way to navigate these waters…trusting in my own humanity and those qualities of compassion, kindness and vision which we all share to bring us through this time together. This particular performance is perhaps the most anticipated one of my life…and for this opportunity I’m eternally grateful.

Please enjoy these highlights from a previous performance of Quartet for the End of Time at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, Illinois featuring Rebekah Cope, violin; Elizandro Garcia-Montoya, clarinet; and Veronica Nettles Kolegas, cello.

—Rick Ferguson, pianist, composer, teacher

Click to watch my Quartet for the End of Time performance highlights from 2017.