In celebration of the 250th birthday anniversary of Noah Webster, the West Hartford Symphony Orchestra will perform the world premiere of Noah's National Language for orchestra, chorus, narrator and actor. Richard Chiarappa, Music Director of the West Hartford Symphony Orchestra, wrote this piece which was commissioned last year by the Noah Webster House Museum. Since Webster was born in West Hartford on October 16, 1758, the Sunday, October 19th concert serves as the culminating moment of the entire week's festivities.
Besides the full orchestral complement, this composition will utiliize a 150 voice chorus made up of students from the West Hartford High Schools and a local narrator and actor playing Noah. Other works on the program include Max Bruch’s Concerto for Violin and Viola, Op. 88 featuring violinist Carin Wiesner McClure and violist Stephen Clink and choral music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
For those interested in philology and linguistics, the Library has Wendell Berry's Standing by Words: Essays, Laurence F. McNamee's A Few Words and The Oxford Companion to the English Language. John Smith Morgan's Noah Webster provides a detailed treatment of the noted writer.
Here is an appropriate quote by Noah Webster from 1821:
"An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed."