MUSIC

Almost All to the West

Grand Circle New Music, with guest conductor Nathan Haines and guest narrator Sam Payne

Saturday, November 14, 7:30pm

Steven Ricks, composer
Stephen Tuttle, librettist
Brent Barson, video artist

In 1776, Franciscan friars Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe in search of an overland route to California. Their expedition carried them across the vast and unfamiliar landscapes of what is now the American Southwest—and through encounters that would become part of the complex history of exploration, culture, faith, and colonization in the West.

Almost All to the West transforms this remarkable journey into a new multimedia concert.

Composer Steven Ricks, writer Stephen Tuttle, and video artist Brent Barson come together to reimagine the journals and experiences of the Domínguez-Escalante expedition through live music and projected imagery. The concert explores not only the physical experience of traveling through an extraordinary landscape, but also the cultural, racial, and religious encounters that shaped—and complicated—the history of the region.

Performed by St. George-based Grand Circle New Music, with guest conductor Nathan Haines, Almost All to the West invites audiences to experience a familiar Western story from new perspectives and consider what exploration has meant—for the people who traveled west, the people and cultures already here, and the landscape itself.

Almost All to the West is supported by a 2026 Interdisciplinary Studies Grant from the BYU Charles Redd Center for Western Studies.

Grand Circle New Music is guided by the artistic direction of Glenn Webb and Robert Matheson.