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U n f i n i s h e d   L i s t   o f   t h e   T h i n g s   I   L o v e

​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.

Commissioned by the Music Teachers National Association & the Missouri Music Teachers Association, 2016.

Awards:

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:

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]

 
 
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