What’s Interesting About This Episode
Viet’s Cuong’s Next Week’s Trees was featured in the first episode of “Poetry in Motion,” which first premiered online in May 2021, at the end of the COVID-impacted 2020-21 virtual season.
- Next Week’s Trees is Viet Cuong’s first commission for the orchestra, and it takes its name from American poet Mary Oliver’s Walking to Oak-Head Pond, And Thinking Of The Ponds I Will Visit In The Next Days And Weeks.
- A National Book Award and Pulitzer prizewinner, Mary Oliver’s works were inspired by nature and a lifelong passion for walks in the wild.
- A reflection of current times, Viet considers the poem: “A gentle reminder of the uncertainty of the future, the confident hope of the present, and the propulsive force of live that drives us through any doubt that a new day will arrive.”
