Virtual Concert: Scrag Mountain duo
Program
Evan Premo (b. 1985) Seasonal Song Cycle: Summer Morning
Text: Rose Fyleman
Lembit Beecher (b. 1981) Looking at Spring: Meditations on Aging Mvmt. VII With Grandchildren
Text: Liza Balkan, based on interviews with senior citizens living in Toronto and Central Vermont
Katherine Balch (b. 1991) Phrases
Text: Arthur Rimbaud
Erik Nielsen (b. 1950) Love Songs [World Premiere]
Text: e.e. cummings, Marsden Hartley, Willa Cather
***Pause***
Shawn Jaeger (b. 1985) In Old Virginny
Text: from Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs
William Parker (b. 1952) Home [World Premiere]
Text: William Parker
(See below for Texts and Translations.)
Evan Premo (b. 1985) Seasonal Song Cycle: Summer Morning
Text: Rose Fyleman
Lembit Beecher (b. 1981) Looking at Spring: Meditations on Aging Mvmt. VII With Grandchildren
Text: Liza Balkan, based on interviews with senior citizens living in Toronto and Central Vermont
Katherine Balch (b. 1991) Phrases
Text: Arthur Rimbaud
Erik Nielsen (b. 1950) Love Songs [World Premiere]
Text: e.e. cummings, Marsden Hartley, Willa Cather
***Pause***
Shawn Jaeger (b. 1985) In Old Virginny
Text: from Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs
William Parker (b. 1952) Home [World Premiere]
Text: William Parker
(See below for Texts and Translations.)
About the Artists
Soprano Mary Bonhag captivates audiences around the country with her “marvelous versatility” and “supple, expressive” voice (San Antonio News). As a new music specialist Mary made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2009 and orchestral debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in the same year. She is co-Artistic Director of Scrag Mountain Music with her husband, composer / double bassist Evan Premo. A consummate collaborator, Mary has performed with the Aizuri Quartet, Decoda, Spektral Quartet, as well as festivals around the country including Cactus Pear (TX), San Francisco Contemporary Players, 21st Century Consort, Tanglewood, New Music on the Point, and Yellow Barn. As a recitalist, she has been presented at Dartmouth, Smith, and Goucher colleges, and the University of Vermont. marybonhagsoprano.com
Composer Katherine Balch is often inspired by literature, nature, and science, aptly reflected in the San Francisco Chronicle’s description of her as “some kind of musical Thomas Edison – you can just hear her tinkering around in her workshop, putting together new sounds and textural ideas.” Katherine’s facility in elevating ordinary sounds through large-scale orchestration and dramatic narrative arcs has led to commissions and performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Minnesota, Oregon, Albany, Indianapolis, and Tokyo. She has been featured on IRCAM’s ManiFeste, Fontainebleau Music Festival, and Festival MANCA in France, Suntory Summer Arts and Takefu Music Festival in Japan, and the Aspen, Norfolk, Santa Fe, and Tanglewood music festivals in the U.S. Her work has been championed by the Argus Quartet and Departure Duo and has been presented in major global venues including Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Nominated by violinist Hilary Hahn, Katherine is the recipient of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2020 Career Advancement Award and has also been honored by ASCAP, BMI, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, the Barlow Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the International Society of Contemporary Music. In 2021, she will be in residence at the American Academy in Rome, completing an album of music for double bass and ensemble as the Elliot Carter Rome Prize Fellow. katherinebalch.com
Composer Lembit Beecher’s music combines “alluring” textures (New York Times) and vividly imaginative colors with striking emotional immediacy. Noted for his collaborative spirit and “ingenious” interdisciplinary projects (Wall Street Journal), Lembit served as composer-in-residence of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, having previously served a three-year term as the inaugural composer-in-residence of Opera Philadelphia in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group. Lembit’s work has been performed at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and Cabrillo Music Festivals and by the New Jersey Symphony, Shepherd School Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, UNL Symphony Orchestra, University of Michigan Symphony Band, Tapestry New Opera, Opera Vista, Cantori NY, Ensemble ACJW, Del Sol String Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Sospiro Winds, Third Sound, and Claremont Trio, among others. The Grand Prize Winner of the S&R Foundation’s Washington Award, he has received honors and grants from the American Music Center, New Music USA, ASCAP, American Composers Forum, and NewMusic@ECU. Lembit was a graduate fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Denison University and has been in residence at the Copland House, MacDowell Colony, Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, White Mountains Festival, Scrag Mountain Music, and the Decoda Skidmore Chamber Music Institute. lembitbeecher.com
The music of composer Shawn Jaeger often engages Appalachian folksong, field recording and creative placemaking. He has worked with performers, including Dawn Upshaw and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Dal Niente, Longleash, Contemporaneous, Alexi Kenney, Ryan Muncy, and Vicky Chow. His music has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Morgan Library, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, Jordan Hall, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, and on such festivals as Tanglewood, MATA, FERUS, and Resonant Bodies. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, the American Composers Forum/Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund), Roulette/Jerome Foundation, the BMI Foundation/Concert Artists Guild (Carlos Surinach Commission), and Chamber Music America. His awards include the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, Northwestern University’s M. William Karlins and William T. Faricy Awards, the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and two BMI Student Composer Awards. Jaeger holds a DMA from Northwestern University and a BM from the University of Michigan. He has taught composition at the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division, Tufts University, Princeton University (as a 2016-18 Princeton Arts Fellow), and Brown University. shawnjaeger.com
Composer Erik Nielsen has created works for chorus, orchestra, wind ensemble, solo instruments, chamber music, works for dance, film and electronic music. His pieces have been performed all over the world by ensembles including A Far Cry, the Amabile, Chiara, Emerson and Ying String Quartets; the National Symphony Orchestra; the Killington and Manchester Chamber Players; Bread and Puppet Theater; the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble; Vermont Opera Theater, Vermont Symphony; Vermont Youth Orchestra and Village and Northern Harmony. He has won awards from ASCAP, the Vermont Arts Council, and the Vermont Music Teachers Association. Recent commissions include a film score for the 2019 Green Mountain Film Festival, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (premiered March 23, 2019 by the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra and funded in part by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council), a new work for chorus and brass or organ, All This Night Shrill Chanticleer, a commission from the Vermont professional chorus Counterpoint, premiered in December, 2018, a new work for the Northern Third Quartet, Piano Quartet #1, premiered in October, 2018 (funded in part by a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation), A Voice in the Night, a four-movement work for bassoon and piano (funded in part by a grant from the Vermont Arts Council), Fanfare in B Flat, commissioned by the Vermont Symphony for their 80th anniversary, and Glimpses of Azure, commissioned by the Boston string orchestra, A Far Cry. eriknielsenmusic.com
William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City. He has recorded over 150 albums, published six books, and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists. The Village Voice called him, “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time” and Time Out New York named him one of the “50 Greatest New York Musicians of All Time.” William’s current active bands include the large-band Little Huey Creative Orchestra, the Raining on the Moon Sextet, the In Order to Survive Quartet, Stan’s Hat Flapping in the Wind, the Cosmic Mountain Quintet with Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Cooper-Moore, as well as a deep and ongoing solo bass study. He also has a duo project "Hope Cries For Justice" with Patricia Nicholson Parker which combines music, story telling, poetry, and dance. Over the decades, William has developed a reputation as a connector and hub of information concerning the history of creative music, recently culminating in a two hefty volumes of interviews with over 60 avant-garde and creative musicians, Conversations I & II. He is also the subject of an exhaustive 468-page “sessionography” that documents thousands of performances and recording sessions, a remarkable chronicle of his prolificness as an active artist. He has been a key figure in the New York and European creative music scenes since the 1970s, and has worked all over the world. He has performed with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Peter Brotzmann, Milford Graves, Peter Kowald, and David S. Ware, among many others. williamparker.net
Double Bassist / Composer Evan Premo creates heart-centered music that inspires audiences and musicians alike. His music has been commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, River Town Duo, Owen Dalby, the International Society of Bassists, Diana Gannett, Paul Dwyer, The Pine Mountain Music Festival, Capitol City Concerts, and the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra. Evan is a member of Decoda with which he has performed in residencies around the world. As a member of Ensemble Connect, Evan has performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall and participated in residencies in Spain and Germany. As a chamber musician, he has performed at summer music festivals throughout the country and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Evan is actively involved with the Community Engagement Lab. He is Founder co-Artistic Director of Scrag Mountain Music with his wife, soprano Mary Bonhag and Founder and Artistic Director of Beethoven and Banjos, a residency that brings together folk and classical musicians in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. evanpremo.com
Soprano Mary Bonhag captivates audiences around the country with her “marvelous versatility” and “supple, expressive” voice (San Antonio News). As a new music specialist Mary made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2009 and orchestral debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in the same year. She is co-Artistic Director of Scrag Mountain Music with her husband, composer / double bassist Evan Premo. A consummate collaborator, Mary has performed with the Aizuri Quartet, Decoda, Spektral Quartet, as well as festivals around the country including Cactus Pear (TX), San Francisco Contemporary Players, 21st Century Consort, Tanglewood, New Music on the Point, and Yellow Barn. As a recitalist, she has been presented at Dartmouth, Smith, and Goucher colleges, and the University of Vermont. marybonhagsoprano.com
Composer Katherine Balch is often inspired by literature, nature, and science, aptly reflected in the San Francisco Chronicle’s description of her as “some kind of musical Thomas Edison – you can just hear her tinkering around in her workshop, putting together new sounds and textural ideas.” Katherine’s facility in elevating ordinary sounds through large-scale orchestration and dramatic narrative arcs has led to commissions and performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Minnesota, Oregon, Albany, Indianapolis, and Tokyo. She has been featured on IRCAM’s ManiFeste, Fontainebleau Music Festival, and Festival MANCA in France, Suntory Summer Arts and Takefu Music Festival in Japan, and the Aspen, Norfolk, Santa Fe, and Tanglewood music festivals in the U.S. Her work has been championed by the Argus Quartet and Departure Duo and has been presented in major global venues including Carnegie Hall, Disney Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Nominated by violinist Hilary Hahn, Katherine is the recipient of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2020 Career Advancement Award and has also been honored by ASCAP, BMI, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, the Barlow Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the International Society of Contemporary Music. In 2021, she will be in residence at the American Academy in Rome, completing an album of music for double bass and ensemble as the Elliot Carter Rome Prize Fellow. katherinebalch.com
Composer Lembit Beecher’s music combines “alluring” textures (New York Times) and vividly imaginative colors with striking emotional immediacy. Noted for his collaborative spirit and “ingenious” interdisciplinary projects (Wall Street Journal), Lembit served as composer-in-residence of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, having previously served a three-year term as the inaugural composer-in-residence of Opera Philadelphia in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group. Lembit’s work has been performed at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and Cabrillo Music Festivals and by the New Jersey Symphony, Shepherd School Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, UNL Symphony Orchestra, University of Michigan Symphony Band, Tapestry New Opera, Opera Vista, Cantori NY, Ensemble ACJW, Del Sol String Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, Sospiro Winds, Third Sound, and Claremont Trio, among others. The Grand Prize Winner of the S&R Foundation’s Washington Award, he has received honors and grants from the American Music Center, New Music USA, ASCAP, American Composers Forum, and NewMusic@ECU. Lembit was a graduate fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Denison University and has been in residence at the Copland House, MacDowell Colony, Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, White Mountains Festival, Scrag Mountain Music, and the Decoda Skidmore Chamber Music Institute. lembitbeecher.com
The music of composer Shawn Jaeger often engages Appalachian folksong, field recording and creative placemaking. He has worked with performers, including Dawn Upshaw and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Dal Niente, Longleash, Contemporaneous, Alexi Kenney, Ryan Muncy, and Vicky Chow. His music has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Morgan Library, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, Jordan Hall, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, and on such festivals as Tanglewood, MATA, FERUS, and Resonant Bodies. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, the American Composers Forum/Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund), Roulette/Jerome Foundation, the BMI Foundation/Concert Artists Guild (Carlos Surinach Commission), and Chamber Music America. His awards include the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, Northwestern University’s M. William Karlins and William T. Faricy Awards, the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and two BMI Student Composer Awards. Jaeger holds a DMA from Northwestern University and a BM from the University of Michigan. He has taught composition at the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division, Tufts University, Princeton University (as a 2016-18 Princeton Arts Fellow), and Brown University. shawnjaeger.com
Composer Erik Nielsen has created works for chorus, orchestra, wind ensemble, solo instruments, chamber music, works for dance, film and electronic music. His pieces have been performed all over the world by ensembles including A Far Cry, the Amabile, Chiara, Emerson and Ying String Quartets; the National Symphony Orchestra; the Killington and Manchester Chamber Players; Bread and Puppet Theater; the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble; Vermont Opera Theater, Vermont Symphony; Vermont Youth Orchestra and Village and Northern Harmony. He has won awards from ASCAP, the Vermont Arts Council, and the Vermont Music Teachers Association. Recent commissions include a film score for the 2019 Green Mountain Film Festival, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (premiered March 23, 2019 by the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra and funded in part by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council), a new work for chorus and brass or organ, All This Night Shrill Chanticleer, a commission from the Vermont professional chorus Counterpoint, premiered in December, 2018, a new work for the Northern Third Quartet, Piano Quartet #1, premiered in October, 2018 (funded in part by a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation), A Voice in the Night, a four-movement work for bassoon and piano (funded in part by a grant from the Vermont Arts Council), Fanfare in B Flat, commissioned by the Vermont Symphony for their 80th anniversary, and Glimpses of Azure, commissioned by the Boston string orchestra, A Far Cry. eriknielsenmusic.com
William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City. He has recorded over 150 albums, published six books, and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists. The Village Voice called him, “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time” and Time Out New York named him one of the “50 Greatest New York Musicians of All Time.” William’s current active bands include the large-band Little Huey Creative Orchestra, the Raining on the Moon Sextet, the In Order to Survive Quartet, Stan’s Hat Flapping in the Wind, the Cosmic Mountain Quintet with Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Cooper-Moore, as well as a deep and ongoing solo bass study. He also has a duo project "Hope Cries For Justice" with Patricia Nicholson Parker which combines music, story telling, poetry, and dance. Over the decades, William has developed a reputation as a connector and hub of information concerning the history of creative music, recently culminating in a two hefty volumes of interviews with over 60 avant-garde and creative musicians, Conversations I & II. He is also the subject of an exhaustive 468-page “sessionography” that documents thousands of performances and recording sessions, a remarkable chronicle of his prolificness as an active artist. He has been a key figure in the New York and European creative music scenes since the 1970s, and has worked all over the world. He has performed with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Peter Brotzmann, Milford Graves, Peter Kowald, and David S. Ware, among many others. williamparker.net
Double Bassist / Composer Evan Premo creates heart-centered music that inspires audiences and musicians alike. His music has been commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra, River Town Duo, Owen Dalby, the International Society of Bassists, Diana Gannett, Paul Dwyer, The Pine Mountain Music Festival, Capitol City Concerts, and the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra. Evan is a member of Decoda with which he has performed in residencies around the world. As a member of Ensemble Connect, Evan has performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall and participated in residencies in Spain and Germany. As a chamber musician, he has performed at summer music festivals throughout the country and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Evan is actively involved with the Community Engagement Lab. He is Founder co-Artistic Director of Scrag Mountain Music with his wife, soprano Mary Bonhag and Founder and Artistic Director of Beethoven and Banjos, a residency that brings together folk and classical musicians in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. evanpremo.com
Text and Translations
Summer Morning by Rose Fyleman
The air around was trembling-bright
And full of dancing specks of light,
While butterflies were dancing too
Between the shining green and blue.
I might not watch, I might not stay,
I ran along the meadow way.
The straggling brambles caught my feet,
The clover field was, oh! so sweet;
I heard a singing in the sky,
And busy things went buzzing by;
And how it came I cannot tell,
But all the hedges sang as well.
Along the clover-field I ran
To where the little wood began,
And there I understood at last
Why I had come so far, so fast
On every leaf of every tree
A fairy sat and smiled at me!
With Grandchildren by Liza Balkan, based on interviews with senior citizens living in Toronto and Central Vermont
I see my part in the continuum
My life is finite…
But life itself
will go on and on and on and on.
So…
that’s ...
um..
It’s a sweet and sour flavour.
I won’t see them,
I won’t see them beyond…
I have no idea how old they will be
when I ‘m last aware of them.
I won’t see them as old as you or I are now
So that’s…
it’s not….
But…
Illuminations (Phrases) by Arthur Rimbaud
I. Le haut étang fume continuellement. Quelle sorcière va se dresser sur le couchant blanc? Quelles violettes frondaisons vont descendre?
The high spring steams relentlessly. What sorceress will emerge from the white sunset? What violet flowerlets will fall?
II. Quand le monde sera réduit en un seul bois noir pour nos quatre yeux étonnés...je vous trouverai.
When the world is reduced to a lone black wood for our four astounded eyes...I will find you.
III. J'ai tendu des cordes [de clocher à clocher; des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre; des chaînes d'or d'étoile à étoile, et je danse].
I stretched ropes [from bell tower to bell tower, garlands from window to window, chains of gold from star to star, and I dance].
IV. il sonne une cloche de feu rose dans les nuages.
From the clouds tolls a bell of pink fire.
Amores (II) by e.e. cummings
in the rain-
darkness, the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you
the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets
of smiles
your eyes half-
thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss
and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then
your dancesong
soul. rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered,and i
think
of you
Fishmonger by Marsden Hartley
I have taken scales from off
The cheeks of the moon.
I have made fins from bluejays’ wings,
I have made eyes from damsons in the shadow.
I have taken flushes from the peachlips in the sun.
From all these I have made a fish of heaven for you,
Set it swimming on a young October sky.
I sit on the bank of the stream and watch
The grasses in amazement
As they turn to ashy gold.
Are the fishes from the rainbow
Still beautiful to you,
For whom they are made,
For whom I have set them,
Swimming?
Evening Song by Willa Cather
Dear love, what thing of all the things that be
Is ever worth one thought from you or me,
Save only Love,
Save only Love?
The days so short, the nights so quick to flee,
The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea,
So dark the sea;
So far the suns and every listless star,
Beyond their light—Ah! dear, who knows how far,
Who knows how far?
One thing of all dim things I know is true,
The heart within me knows, and tells it you,
And tells it you.
So blind is life, so long at last is sleep,
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep,
And none but Love,
And none but Love.
In Old Virginny from Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs of the Souther Appalachians
I was born in Old Virginny,
South Carolina I did go,
Courted there a fair lady,
Oh her name I do not know.
Her hair was of a dark brown colour,
And her lips was rosy red;
On her breast she wrote white lilies,
And tears for her I shed.
In my heart I love you darling,
To my door you're welcome in,
At my gate I'll meet you darling,
Here's the one I'm trying to win.
I'd rather be on some dark blue ocean
Where the sun refuses to shine,
Than for you to love another girl,
And to think you'll never be mine.
I'd rather be dead and in my coffin,
My pale face turned towards the sun,
Than to think of you, my darling,
And to think of what you've done.
Here's your letters and your postals;
Lie them closely by your heart,
The ring you gave to me, darling,
From my finger will never part.
Home by William Parker
My home is in the mountains
My home is in the mountains
White pine and cedar live there
The sky is always beautiful
Each season changes color
Red orange is deliteful
Purple and yellow flowers
All part of the sweet earth bright song
In the mountains it is snowing
Wood is burning poems are flying
Paint is dancing on to canvas
World is changing angels singing
Tea is brewing soup is cooking
Bread is baking sun and the moon
are holding hands night is coming
there is still light to guide angels
Summer Morning by Rose Fyleman
The air around was trembling-bright
And full of dancing specks of light,
While butterflies were dancing too
Between the shining green and blue.
I might not watch, I might not stay,
I ran along the meadow way.
The straggling brambles caught my feet,
The clover field was, oh! so sweet;
I heard a singing in the sky,
And busy things went buzzing by;
And how it came I cannot tell,
But all the hedges sang as well.
Along the clover-field I ran
To where the little wood began,
And there I understood at last
Why I had come so far, so fast
On every leaf of every tree
A fairy sat and smiled at me!
With Grandchildren by Liza Balkan, based on interviews with senior citizens living in Toronto and Central Vermont
I see my part in the continuum
My life is finite…
But life itself
will go on and on and on and on.
So…
that’s ...
um..
It’s a sweet and sour flavour.
I won’t see them,
I won’t see them beyond…
I have no idea how old they will be
when I ‘m last aware of them.
I won’t see them as old as you or I are now
So that’s…
it’s not….
But…
Illuminations (Phrases) by Arthur Rimbaud
I. Le haut étang fume continuellement. Quelle sorcière va se dresser sur le couchant blanc? Quelles violettes frondaisons vont descendre?
The high spring steams relentlessly. What sorceress will emerge from the white sunset? What violet flowerlets will fall?
II. Quand le monde sera réduit en un seul bois noir pour nos quatre yeux étonnés...je vous trouverai.
When the world is reduced to a lone black wood for our four astounded eyes...I will find you.
III. J'ai tendu des cordes [de clocher à clocher; des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre; des chaînes d'or d'étoile à étoile, et je danse].
I stretched ropes [from bell tower to bell tower, garlands from window to window, chains of gold from star to star, and I dance].
IV. il sonne une cloche de feu rose dans les nuages.
From the clouds tolls a bell of pink fire.
Amores (II) by e.e. cummings
in the rain-
darkness, the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you
the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets
of smiles
your eyes half-
thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss
and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then
your dancesong
soul. rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered,and i
think
of you
Fishmonger by Marsden Hartley
I have taken scales from off
The cheeks of the moon.
I have made fins from bluejays’ wings,
I have made eyes from damsons in the shadow.
I have taken flushes from the peachlips in the sun.
From all these I have made a fish of heaven for you,
Set it swimming on a young October sky.
I sit on the bank of the stream and watch
The grasses in amazement
As they turn to ashy gold.
Are the fishes from the rainbow
Still beautiful to you,
For whom they are made,
For whom I have set them,
Swimming?
Evening Song by Willa Cather
Dear love, what thing of all the things that be
Is ever worth one thought from you or me,
Save only Love,
Save only Love?
The days so short, the nights so quick to flee,
The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea,
So dark the sea;
So far the suns and every listless star,
Beyond their light—Ah! dear, who knows how far,
Who knows how far?
One thing of all dim things I know is true,
The heart within me knows, and tells it you,
And tells it you.
So blind is life, so long at last is sleep,
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep,
And none but Love,
And none but Love.
In Old Virginny from Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs of the Souther Appalachians
I was born in Old Virginny,
South Carolina I did go,
Courted there a fair lady,
Oh her name I do not know.
Her hair was of a dark brown colour,
And her lips was rosy red;
On her breast she wrote white lilies,
And tears for her I shed.
In my heart I love you darling,
To my door you're welcome in,
At my gate I'll meet you darling,
Here's the one I'm trying to win.
I'd rather be on some dark blue ocean
Where the sun refuses to shine,
Than for you to love another girl,
And to think you'll never be mine.
I'd rather be dead and in my coffin,
My pale face turned towards the sun,
Than to think of you, my darling,
And to think of what you've done.
Here's your letters and your postals;
Lie them closely by your heart,
The ring you gave to me, darling,
From my finger will never part.
Home by William Parker
My home is in the mountains
My home is in the mountains
White pine and cedar live there
The sky is always beautiful
Each season changes color
Red orange is deliteful
Purple and yellow flowers
All part of the sweet earth bright song
In the mountains it is snowing
Wood is burning poems are flying
Paint is dancing on to canvas
World is changing angels singing
Tea is brewing soup is cooking
Bread is baking sun and the moon
are holding hands night is coming
there is still light to guide angels
Special thanks to all participating composers and to Melissa Brough and Chris Marshall for the use of their space for this concert.
Scrag Mountain Music is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts and Vermont Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Scrag Mountain Music's 2019-20 season is generously supported by VPR, National Life Group Foundation, and the Windham Foundation. With additional support from The Seaver Fund, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, The Amphion Foundation, Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom, Mad River Valley Rotary Club, and Capitol Copy.
Scrag Mountain Music is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts and Vermont Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Scrag Mountain Music's 2019-20 season is generously supported by VPR, National Life Group Foundation, and the Windham Foundation. With additional support from The Seaver Fund, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, The Amphion Foundation, Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom, Mad River Valley Rotary Club, and Capitol Copy.