Page 9 - Summer Program_06-2019

For the joy of human love, For each perfect gift of thine
Brother, sister, parent, child, To our world so freely given,
Friends on earth, and friends above, Graces human and divine,
For all gentle thoughts and mild: Flow’rs of earth and buds of heav’n:
Lord of all, to thee we raise
Lord of all, to thee we raise This our joyful hymn of praise.
This our joyful hymn of praise. - Folliott Sandford Pierpoint

Adorable flujo & Portones abiertos y rostros brillantes Paul Basler (1963 – )
Text: Gabriel Navar (~1970 – )
Paul Basler is an American horn performer, composer, and music professor whose works
have received enthusiastic acclaim throughout the world: at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood,
the Spoleto Festival, Symphony Hall in Chicago, Kennedy Center, Sydney Opera House,
Aspen Music Festival, the National Theatres of Kenya and the Dominican Republic, and
the Shanghai Philharmonic, to name a few.

Gabriel Navar is a California artist, poet, and college arts educator from the San Francisco
Bay Area. He describes his main focus in his work as the interconnectedness he feels with
his natural and urban environment as well as the connection he feels with his culture (he
is of Mexican descent), with our planet, and with the phenomenon and celebration of
existence.

Basler’s initial introduction to Gabriel Navar’s poetry was in 2000, when he was
commissioned by a Texas high school choir to write a work based on a Spanish text –
Navar’s “Portones abiertos y rostros brillantes.” Basler was “immediately struck by the
incredible imagery of the poetry as well as the obvious joy in life, nature, and love that
is so present in Gabriel’s work.” The collaboration that followed, in that piece as well
as a number of subsequent works, was natural, considering the two artists’ compatible
outlooks on culture, the human condition, and art itself. Magnifying the artistic breadth
of Navar’s work is his frequent creation of companion paintings for his poems, each set
with the same name: Thus, with Basler’s added musical framework, music, painting, and
poetry all interweave to create a rich world, which is, in Navar’s loving words, “about this
great and often absurd human theatre we are currently living!”

“Adorable flujo” was written for and commissioned by the ACDA Junior High/Middle
School Honor Choir (the 2001 National Convention in San Antonio, Texas) and their
conductor, Dr. Lynne Grackle. The text by Navar, and the painting that goes with it, is
about positively connecting with and truly appreciating the flow of history through our
present and on to the future. It is about “grandchildren to be.”
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