Unfinished List of the Things I Love
Duration: 9'30"
Instrumentation:
Mezzo-Soprano and Piano
Program Notes:
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
– William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The poems used here in these five songs for mezzo-soprano and piano were written especially for use in this song cycle. I became close friends with Jennifer Weiman and Jordan Voth, a husband and wife pair of musicians, while Jordan and I were in graduate school together. The poet, Daniel Weller, is a friend of theirs from their undergraduate studies, and therefore this piece truly is a collaboration amongst friends.
The five poems are unified in their evocative imagery that depicts various facets of love.
I. Unfinished
Unfinished list
Of the things
I love most:
White apple
Of the moon,
Fresh mint
And fish.
II. Love
Glaciers, shells, pine needles.
Like the shadow
Of a feather
Flying through the earth
You land in my hands:
A pale, luminous leaf.
III. Untitled
Your voice—
Raw honey
As it filters
Like a golden flame
Through dawn.
Sound that surrounds me
When the rest of the world runs empty.
Raspy, succulent, as deep
As the neck of a flower.
IV. Autumn Sonnet
I ask little of light, soil, the night sky.
That each is a kind of compass—that’s fine.
That each leads me to you—a miracle.
I do not need much: just this life, to die
Having loved insatiably, against my
Nature, having given everything up
And having never lost a thing, to fill
My life and your life simply, like a cup.
The air—still wandering in its old age—
Will be plenty to guide me when I must
Leave the globe of the body and return
Like a calm star to my cradle of dust:
For it is where our love was born, first leaf
In the light, when there was no pain, no grief.
V. Even the Little Things
Even the little things
I was sure would linger
Have passed—submerging
Themselves in the crisp
Flower of time…
So many drops
Of dew.
Perusal Score
Commissioned by the Music Teachers National Association & the Missouri Music Teachers Association, 2016.
Awards:
Selected Score, 2023 Gregory Wiest Call for Scores "What Will Be"
Selected Performance, 2023 Society of Composers, Inc. Online National Conference
Selected Performance, 2023 New Music on the Bayou Festival
Semi-Finalist, The American Prize 2019 Composition-Vocal Chamber Music (Professional Division) Category
Selected Performance, 2019 Society of Composers, Inc. Region VI Conference
Selected Performance, 2018 University of South Florida New-Music Festival and Symposium
Selected Performance, 2017 Emerging Midwestern Collegiate Composers (EMCC) Conference
Performances:
Madeleine LaFollette and Michael McAndrew - 3 June 2023; Online [Video of Performance on YouTube]
Claire Vangelisti and Richard Seiler - 31 May 2023; Ruston, LA
Melissa Rodriguez, Michaella Prussak, and Laura Maxwell - 11 April 2019; Commerce, TX
Marika Kyriakos and Emily Trapp Jenkins - 26 February 2019; Jonesboro, AR
Songeaters - 6 April 2018; Tampa, FL
Jennifer Weiman and Jordan Voth - 10 March 2017; Kansas City, MO
Jennifer Weiman and Jordan Voth - 5 November 2016; Springfield, MO [Video of Performance on YouTube]