Songs for soprano and orchestra; text by Francesca Hersh

Early Harvests was inspired by the recollections of a Hungarian Jew whose family was among the final victims of the Holocaust. Above all, it focuses on her relationship to her sister Klara, who, with the rest of her relatives, perished in the camps.

The first movement - "The Taking" - depicts the young girl's abduction; like fast cuts in a movie, objects from her everyday life flash before her eyes. She reaches out to her mother and father for help, but above all, she cries out to her sister and asks, "Where are your hands?"

The second movement is a conversation between the survivor - now a mature woman - and her sister, who remains a child, frozen in time. She recalls their life together in the camps, and happy pre-war memories with their father. She retells their incomprehensible story in terms of a fairy tale. Finally, she returns to the concentration camp itself to help liberate her sister's spirit.

It is Jewish custom to leave a stone at the grave of a friend or relative. Now she searches for a stone among the rubble of the camp; she lights a candle in her sister's memory, and sends her spirit on its journey home.

Early Harvests was commissioned by Music in the Mountains and premiered on June 23, 2000 by Kerry Walsh, soprano and Paul Perry, conductor.