Solo Vocal
Elegy for a Walnut Tree
This setting of a poem by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, W. S. Merwin, is similar in theme to Schubert’s “Der Lindenbaum" from Winterreise:: the poet considers how his life has been intertwined with this beloved tree for decades. Old friend now there is no one alive who remembers when you were young it was high summer when I first saw you in the blaze of day most of my life ago with the dry grass whispering in your shade and already you had lived through wars and echoes of wars around your silence through days of parting and seasons of absence with the house emptying as the years went their way until it was home to bats and swallows and still when spring climbed toward summer you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened you and the seasons spoke the same language and all these years I have looked through your limbs to the river below and the roofs and the night and you were the way I saw the world
For the Anniversary of My Death
This is a setting of one of the late W. S. Merwin’s (1927-2019) most well-known poems. Every year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveler Like the beam of a lightless star Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Surprised at the earth And the love of one woman And the shamelessness of men As today writing after three days of rain Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease And bowing not knowing to what
The Gift
A setting of a poem by Louise Glück, in which a mother offers a rather informal prayer on behalf of her toddler: Lord, you may not recognize me speaking for someone else. I have a son. He is so little, so ignorant. He likes to stand at the screen door, calling oggie, oggie, entering language, and sometimes a dog will stop and come up the walk, perhaps accidentally. May he believe this is not an accident. At the screen welcoming each beast in love’s name, Your emissary. —Louise Glück, from The First Four Books of Poems, in Twentieth Century American Poetry
I Asked the Crow
A setting of a poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo: So what are we doing here I ask the crow parading on the ledge of Falling that hangs over this precarious city? Crow just laughs and says wait, wait and see and I am waiting And not seeing anything, not just yet. But like the crow I collect the shine of anything beautiful I can find.
Into the Still Hollow
Premiered at Symphony Space in New York by Thomas Meglioranza and Reiko Uchida.. Seven characters appear in succession in this W. S. Merwin setting: a king, a monk, a scholar, a huntsman, a farmer, a mother, and a poet. In the manner of a medieval dance of death, each character briefly tells of their life, and ends with the refrain, “et nunc in pulvere dormio” (and now I lie in the dust.) It is similar in its structure to Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, that is, multiple contrasted sections forming a miniature song cycle. King I saw from a silk pillow all high stations and low smile when I spoke, and bow, and obey and follow. All men do as I do. I went in gold and yellow, ermine and gemmed shoe, and was human even so, et, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormo. Monk I hoped that all sinners who wore a saintly sorrow into heaven should go. All this did I do: Walk with the eyes low, keep lonely pillow, many days go fasting and hollow, all my bounty bestow, et, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio. Scholar I sat like a shadow the light sallow, reasoning yes and no. One thing I came to know. I heard the mouse go, heard whispers in the tallow, wind disputing, "although. . . ." Night on the candle blow. et, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio. Huntsman The wind blew in the cold furrow; The falcon flew, These did I follow: Deerhound, doe, fox upon snow, and sent the arrow, and was chased, who did follow, and came to this burrow, et, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio. Farmer I walked with plow on the green fallow all I did harrow dirt does undo. Out at elbow I lie to mellow set in a furrow the weeds' fellow. Quod, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio. Woman I was as green willow, my hands white and slow love and increase below. Be reaped as you did sow. I am bitter as rue. Now am I also defaced and hollow nursing no shadow Quod, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio. Epitaph Lords, I forget what I knew; I saw false and true, sad and antic show, did profane and hallow, I saw the worthies go into the still hollow and wrote their words, even so, et, ecce, nunc in pulvere dormio
It Nests Within Each Cell
This song was written for my daughter’s wedding. It’s a setting of a poem by May Swenson: Love is little, and not loud, It nests within each cell, It cannot be split. It is a ray, a seed, a note a word, A secret motion of our air and blood. It is not alien, it is near, Our very skin, A sheath to keep us pure of fear.
Rings of Birch Bark
A setting of “Love Song 2” by A. R. Ammons, a poem that contemplates the life cycle, and the way in which, at our death, the physical material of our bodies will enter into the surrounding nature, and, in the longest of terms, be swallowed up in a star. The metaphor of rings of birch bark, which remain after the wood of the tree has dissolved away, stands for a love that carries on after death. Rings of birch bark stand in the woods still circling the nearly vanished log: After we are gone to pass through log and star these white songs will hug us together in the woods of some lover’s head.
Time and Wind
This is a setting of passages from James Joyce's Ulysses for soprano and string quartet. The string quartet plays mostly natural harmonics for a calm, crystalline effect. text: These heavy sands are language time and wind have silted here. . . . tranquil brightness . . . form of forms . . tranquility vast, candescent . . . . . . form of forms