Update Title: 0E3BD812-C33D-4369-9741-9AFAC69C4FCD

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Perhaps the first thing one should know about Claud Baker's Sleepers Awake is that it has absolutely no connection with the famous Bach cantata "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme," BWV 140 which is known in English by the same title. Rather, Mr. Baker's work is a setting for solo voice, percussion and strings of a poem by Kenneth Patchem. That poem, "Rest, Heart of the Tired World," appears in a collection of Patchen's verses called "Sleepers Awake," and Mr. Baker chose this title for the present composition, thereby amplifying the text of the poem.

The piece was commissioned by the Center for the Humanities at the University of Missouri, Saint Louis (UMSL) and was premiered during the Center's 1998 "What Is a City?" Conference. In writing this work, Claude Baker sought to spotlight the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's educational outreach activities. During his eight-year tenure as the Orchestra's Composer-in-Residence, he helped develop the partnership between the Symphony and UMSL. He thus conceived Sleepers Awake for an ensemble drawn in equal measure from the ranks of the Saint Louis Symphony, on one hand, and from the Saint Louis Youth Orchestra and UMSL students on the other. Kenneth Patchen's poem considers the darker aspects of urban life ("cities keep their cold terrible watches"), but envisions the possibility of redemption ("redress form the crimes/Of [this] most brutal habitation...").  --Paul Schiavo

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