LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – KPFZ 88.1 FM will host a classical music and poetry performance by local composer Carolyn Hawley from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 30.

"Story of the World" is a secular oratorio composed by Carolyn Hawley for chorus and orchestra. It is written to a set of poems by California poet Kenneth Klauss.

Hawley purchased a copy of the poems from Klauss on the streets of Sausalito in the early 1970s. She was so taken by the beauty and the wisdom of Klauss' poetry, that years later she composed this hour long oratorio.

The poems are a prehistory of our world, before mankind. The musical score, as yet unperformed, took Hawley more than 20 years to write. The cost of having union musicians and a choir perform it is too excessive for most professional orchestras, so this may be the only time anyone now alive may hear a version of it.

On April 30, Hawley will share an electronic version of a piano reduction of the score, while reading aloud the poems. There will be a repeat broadcast of the program on Monday, May 2, at 11 p.m.

Hawley's other large composition for chorus and orchestra is called “Russian River Mass,” which was performed in Ukiah and Willits in 1988 during Hawley's tenure as conductor of the Ukiah Symphony and Mendocino Chorus.