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Duo
2025
Piano
Soprano
- Program Notes
- This piece was written for soprano Alannah Spencer to be included in her recital “Waiting and Weaving,” in fulfillment of her Vocal Fellowship with Art Song Chicago. The program of this recital brought together various portrayals of Penelope from Homer’s The Odyssey, as she has appeared across time in music, poetry, and artwork. As one of the commissioned composers for this project, I was delighted to contribute a 2025 perspective on Penelope. As a character, she is often remembered for her unflagging loyalty to her husband, remaining faithful to him despite two decades of separation due to war and fate. In more contemporary times, artists have been unsatisfied to portray Odysseus’s wife as merely a “lady in waiting,” and instead often choose to highlight her intelligence and cunning; how she utilizes her talent in weaving to put off marrying again, exercising her agency in choice and her persuasiveness. In my research for this piece, I became fascinated by the mechanics involved in the act of weaving. The Ancient Greeks, I learned, would have called the particular kind of loom that Penelope uses - a warp-weighted loom - histos. I was struck by the apparent similarity between this word for “loom” and the word “history.” Perhaps, then, the weavers of ancient yore were the first historians. These weavers, the vast majority of whom were women, were tasked with preserving stories and social memory in their threads. And as Penelope proves, this was not merely a passive act of recording, but one that was shaped by the choices of the storytellers. It is a reminder that history, even as we understand it today, is not simply a reflection of the objective truth of what has come before, but the result of spinning, shaping, and unraveling by many, forgotten and unforgotten.
- Recording Notes
Live recording by Matt Peckham
- Performer Credits
- Alannah Spencer, Jeremy Vigil
- Publisher
- Art Song Chicago