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Small Ensemble
2022
Cello
Clarinet
Flute
Guitar
Mezzo-soprano
Violin
- Program Notes
- After deciding with the Nebula Ensemble that my piece for them in spring 2022 would be a song cycle based on the Covid-19 pandemic, I started to think about what I wanted in the piece. What would the text be? I started by looking for poetry on the plague, thinking my piece could be an historical allegory, but then I realized that what I really wanted was contemporary words and ideas about this extraordinary time we are living through. I asked poet Alyse Knorr if she would write some words based on the pandemic. She immediately agreed and sent me several beautiful poems about this modern plague, from the point of view of, among others, a patient, a daughter, a doctor, a friend, and the planet itself. I pondered the best order of the poems and decided to begin with “The Patient,” which opens with an American’s casual disbelief about the severity of what was to come; and to end with “The Friend,” which expresses the way in which the pandemic after only a few weeks seemed to have always been with us. . .and also the way in which it would always be with us. I ended the cycle with Knorr’s words “here and here and always,” which is the second to last line in “The Friend,” because, at least in February 2022, when I finished the work, it felt as if we would never be free of this scourge. The music ranges from frantic to lamenting, and from peaceful to unsettled, reflecting the myriad emotions that we have all experienced since 2020.
- Record Label
- Disegni Music
- Performer Credits
- Nebula Ensemble: Sarah Perske, mezzo-soprano; Catherine Flinchum, flute; Josh Goo, clarinet; Russ Callison, guitar; Arlo Adams, violin; Kevin McFarland, cello
- Publisher
- Disegni Music
- External Links