Intensive Care

June 9th, 2019 - 4p

Cerimon House — 5131 NE 23rd Avenue, Portland

INTENSIVE CARE tackles a situation many face. One in 100 babies is born with a congenital heart defect. For this concert, we reflect on all whose early days of parenthood are different than envisioned-with babies born early, babies sick, babies lost. Often invisible stories, they are also stories mixed with hope and transformational love.

In this concert, we give the West Coast premiere of Stephen Caldwell’s Pre-existing Condition, composed to honor his own son’s birth with a congenital heart defect. Caldwell sets original texts about his experience, as well as tender poetry by ee cummings.

The concert also marks the release of our debut album, LISTEN, including the world premiere recordings of Melissa Dunphy’s LISTEN, setting the courageous Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, and of Renee Favand-See’s deeply personal Only in Falling, setting poems of Wendell Berry in memory of her beloved infant son Owen.