“Canadian Cellist and composer Cris Derksen, of Cree and Mennonite descent, was chosen as Composer-in-Residence for Newport Classical’s 56th Season, receiving a commission for First Light which had its World Premiere by the Galvin Cello Quartet in the Breakers Mansion Sunday night. As an indigenous composer, Dirksen claims not to speak for all indigenous peoples: “I feel like I am representing myself as an Indigenous artist. We are all so different” (I Care If You Listen), “For me, it’s about telling our stories, …getting our stories out there to all the people” (Boston Globe). The “story” for this piece is an imaginative retelling of a historic event about which little is known: a 1771 advertisement offering a $3.00 reward for the return of one John Anthony, a runaway indentured (slave) boy, “Indian…pretty light colored.” Dirksen researched Rhode Island’s Wampanoag tribe, whose name means “People of the First Light” and reimagined the young Anthony making his escape in the first light of day, and the hope and resilience of what that life could be.”
-Stephen Martorella, The Boston Musical Intelligencer
