The Endangered
Oct 27 - Oct. 29
Verdigris Ensemble launches its 7th season in collaboration with the Dallas Contemporary, immersively presenting The Endangered - a 55-minute concert of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s acclaimed Mass for the Endangered, Edie Hill’s Spectral Spirits, and 3 locally commissioned world premieres about threatened Texas species. Sixteen singers and 10 instrumentalists will perform within the venue's stark industrial space as Courtney Ware's stunning AI-generated visuals animate a towering 110-foot wall, vividly enhancing the musical call to urgent conservation action.
Sung in: English
Subtitles in: English
Runtime: 55 minutes
No Intermission
The entire concert is seated
Concerts are immediately followed by a reception.
A complimentary drink is provided with every ticket purchase.
A portion of every ticket will be donated to the Texas Trees Foundation
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Art
In The Endangered, visual artist Courtney Ware harnesses artificial intelligence to represent the double-edged sword of technological progress. AI visuals like the one you see here, generated and refined by Ware’s careful series of text prompts, parallels the homogenization of human culture and biodiversity. The Endangered explores the tension between advancement and conservation. This incorporation of technology reinforces the work's urgent call to protect our natural world. By blending tradition and innovation, The Endangered provides insight into safeguarding our diverse communities and ecosystems in the face of unchecked progress.
Artificial intelligence visuals will be used through the whole Verdigris Ensemble season, continuing to explore the tension between technology and conservation.
Music
Mass For The Endangered, Sarah Kirkland Snider
Selections from Spectral Spirits, Edie Hill
Whooping Crane, Kyle Brenn*
Greasewood Moth, Samuel K. Sweet*¹
Black-Capped Vireo, Anuj Bhutani*¹
*World Premiere, commissioned by Verdigris Ensemble
¹ Dallas composer
Samuel K. Sweet is a singing member of Verdigris Ensemble
Meet The Endangered Animals
Greasewood Moth
Agapema anona
Status: Critically Imperiled
Once found across the Southwest's desert shrublands feeding on greasewood plants, the nondescript greasewood moth, last seen in 1961, exemplifies how even widespread species can be rapidly decimated by human activities like grazing, agriculture, and unbalanced use of chemicals.
Passenger Pigeon
Ectopistes migratorius
Status: Extinct
The Passenger Pigeon, a species of pigeon native to North America that once numbered in the billions but was driven to extinction in the early 1900s due to aggressive hunting and habitat loss, serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of even abundant species and how critical environmental conservation efforts are to prevent human activities from irreparably damaging ecosystems and biodiversity.
Whooping Crane
Grus americana
Status: Endangered
Once found throughout North America but reduced to just 15 individuals by 1941 due to overhunting and habitat loss, the majestic Whooping Crane has slowly increased to around 500 birds today thanks to captive breeding and conservation efforts to protect its nesting grounds in Wood Buffalo National Park and wintering grounds on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Black-Capped Vireo
Vireo atricapilla
Status: Endangered
The Black-capped Vireo, a songbird native to the brushlands of Texas and surrounding states that was abundant until habitat destruction and nest parasitism caused precipitous declines leading to its listing as endangered in 1987, continues to face an uncertain future with only around 14,000 birds remaining despite conservation efforts to protect its fragile ecosystem.
Eskimo Curlew, also known as Northern Curlew
Numenius borealis
Status: Critically Endangered
Once abundant across Canada's tundra and prairies but driven to extinction by uncontrolled hunting and habitat loss in the late 1800s, the Northern Curlew was last reliably seen in the 1960s and now believed extinct.
