Bristol Hills

• Bristol Hills is dedicated to Ferriss’s friend, tenor John Vorrasi,¹ with whom he co-founded the William Ferris Chorale.²

“On a trip to the nearby Finger Lakes region, I took Bill to the top of what seemed an unassuming hill. But once you climbed to the crest, you were suddenly at a great vista — the expanse of the green valley below and the light of the sun reflecting down on the distant Canandaigua Lake — all enveloped in an amazing silence broken only by a gentle wind and the muffled chirping of birds. This experience is captured in Bristol Hills, a work which bears the dedication: ‘To John, who taught me of the hills.‘”

John Vorrasi³

1. Francis Crociata, liner notes to Corridors of Light: Music of William Ferris, Alan Heatherington et al, Cedille 7004, CD, 2010.
2. “William Ferris,” Cedille Records, accessed October 1, 2019, http://www.cedillerecords.org/artists/william-ferris.
3. Quoted in Francis Crociata, liner notes to Corridors of Light: Music of William Ferris, Alan Heatherington et al, Cedille 7004, CD, 2010.