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CLASSICAL CONNECTIONS: FEATURING TIFT MERRITT
March 14, 2026
7:30 PM | Wilson Center @ CFCC
Peter Askim, conductor
Tift Merritt, singer/songwriter
Centered on the ideas of redemption, recovery, and resilience, this Classical Connections program takes its inspiration from the Japanese art of kintsugi: repairing broken pottery with gold and other beautiful materials – highlighting, rather than hiding, an object’s brokenness, and making the repair itself a thing of beauty.
Desolate and contemplating suicide because of the inevitable advance of his deafness, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote that his destiny to create art alone would keep him alive. Written at the same time as his struggle with depression, Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (Creatures of Prometheus) is an epic battle between darkness and light. Beethoven emerged from his darkness to create transcendent works of beauty and humanity, in spite of – or perhaps because of – his struggles.
Michael R. Dudley’s …there is yet beauty searches for hope amidst the struggles of our contemporary world, seeking solace in a hurting world. Gentle, meditative, and deeply felt, it is a work of deep faith and profound belief in the power to the natural world.
Tift Merritt’s The Other Side of Hungry River looks at North Carolina’s complicated history of shuttered psychiatric institutions through the stories of those who inhabited them. Sweeping, tender, and inspiring, it celebrates the fundamental humanity and vulnerability that binds us all. Assembled from the shattered shards of our most vulnerable, Merritt’s work, like kintsugi itself, celebrates the beauty and complication that come from healing broken things.
Forged in the fire of adversity bearing the scars of its resilience, the music on the program emerges stronger, strengthened, and even more beautiful than before.
Program:
Ludwig van Beethoven: Overture to Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, Op. 43
Michael R. Dudley, Jr.: …there is yet beauty
Salina Fisher: Kintsugi
Tift Merritt: Broken and other selections
Tift Merritt: The Other Side of Hungry River (orchestrated by Peter Askim)
MICHAEL R. DUDLEY JR.
Composer, trumpeter, and educator Michael R. Dudley Jr. has developed a career branching in multiple directions and defying conventions of genre. As a composer they have earned awards through ASCAP, FirstMusic (in partnership with the New York Youth Symphony), and the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers. In July 2024, Michael was one of four composers mentored by Augusta Read Thomas in the DeGaetano Composition Institute with the award-winning Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In addition to OSL, Michael’s recent collaborations range from jazz saxophonist Donny McCaslin to the American Composers Orchestra, with Michael’s compositions and orchestrations having been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Sphinx Virtuosi, Charlotte Symphony, Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, New Canon Chamber Collective, and Next Festival of Emerging Artists, with more premieres scheduled soon. As a performer, Michael has played at venues like NYC's Birdland with groups such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Christian McBride Big Band, and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, having recorded as a lead trumpet player on multiple GRAMMY®-winning recordings by the John Daversa Big Band and Brian Lynch Big Band.
SALINA FISHER
Salina Fisher (b.1993) is an award-winning New Zealand composer whose works are frequently performed worldwide. Drawing from her background as a multi-instrumentalist of mixed Japanese heritage, her highly evocative music often involves collaborations, notably with taonga pūoro practitioners. Her works have been programmed by New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Tanglewood Music Festival, Helsinki Philharmonic, A Far Cry, Brodsky Quartet, and Symphony Orchestras of Seattle, Atlanta, Dallas, Melbourne, and Shanghai, including with conductors Gemma New and Tianyi Lu. She became the youngest-ever recipient of the SOUNZ Contemporary Award in 2016 and 2017, and has received awards from Fulbright, The Arts Foundation, Creative NZ, and CANZ. She is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music, New York, and New Zealand School of Music – Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington, where she was appointed Composer-in-Residence (2019-2020) and Teaching Fellow in Composition.
TIFT MERRITT
TIFT MERRITT is a Grammy-nominated musician who wanted to be a writer until her father taught her guitar chords and Percy Sledge songs. She has toured around the world with her sonic short stories and garnered a reputation for making her own way and setting an interesting artistic table. The New Yorker calls her "the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry.” Don Henley, with help from Mick Jagger, kicks off Cass County with a cover of her song Bramble Rose. Taking time off the road to raise her daughter, Merritt began work on larger, site specific projects by way of collecting found objects in the abandoned asylum in her hometown as forgotten, essential language. Merritt has also collected artist interviews researching creative process and integrity on The Spark for Carolina Performing Arts and Marfa, Texas Public Radio. She is a Practitioner-In-Residence in collaboration with the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University and lives in North Carolina with her daughter Jean.
