THE POET (2022) for soprano, flute, oboe, double bass and piano
Instrumentation: soprano, flute, oboe, double bass and piano
Duration: ~6’30”
Performance/Recording History:
Premiered 2/26/22 by the Newphonia ensemble (Keri Lee Pierson, Claudia Aizaga, David Munro, Adam Har-Zvi, and Sandra Coursey) at the Interlochen Arts Academy Composers Forum in Interlochen, MI
Performed 3/18/22 by the Newphonia ensemble (Katherine Pracht Phares, Claudia Aizaga, David Munro, Adam Har-Zvi, and Sandra Coursey) at the Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts Recital in Bowling Green, OH
Performed 9/25/22 by the Newphonia ensemble (Katherine Pracht Phares, Claudia Aizaga, David Munro, Adam Har-Zvi, and Sandra Coursey) at the Western Illinois University Guest Ensemble Recital at COFAC Recital Hall the campus of Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL
Program Notes:
THE POET uses the text from a poem of the same name written by Amy Lowell. The poem has been provided below for your perusal:
What instinct forces man to journey on,
Urged by a longing blind but dominant!
Nothing he sees can hold him, nothing daunt
His never failing eagerness. The sun
Setting in splendour every night has won
His vassalage; those towers flamboyant
Of airy cloudland palaces now haunt
His daylight wanderings. Forever done
With simple joys and quiet happiness
He guards the vision of the sunset sky;
Though faint with weariness he must possess
Some fragment of the sunset's majesty;
He spurns life's human friendships to profess
Life's loneliness of dreaming ecstasy.
THE POET was created in collaboration with Bowling Green State University's Newphonia ensemble for their residency at Interlochen Arts Academy.