for soprano, violin and percussion

Commissioned by Steve Paul, Thomas Stroik and Friends of Michelle Boisseau

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Listen:

via Soundcloud Eavesdropping: Poems of Michelle Boisseau

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Watch:

Performance by Victoria Sofia Botero, soprano
Jacob Ashworth, violin
Michael Compitello, percussion

I. “Eavesdropping”
II. “Cataract” (at 8’12”)
III. from “Counting” and “Persephone” (at 10’52”)

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Michelle Boisseau’s poems hit me like a bus. Ferocious, visceral, excruciatingly perceptive and imagistic, and always, always about something. Lots of poetry is specific enough yet vague and universal enough to provide a structure on which to hang a lot of music. We like these, they are useful to composers! However, Boisseau’s poems are emphatically the opposite; you cannot hang music on them in flights of fancy or use them to make grand compositional gestures. They are chiseled stone, finished, highly detailed sculptures. I read them over and over, searching for texts that I felt wouldn’t be diminished by adding music. I chose these because I felt I might be able to add to the atmosphere (Eavesdropping) or dramatize the speaker’s voice (Cataract) or isolate and share a rare hopefulness (Counting/Persephone). They are challenging in every way imaginable, including all the best ways. This commission has been an honor to tangle with.

Available from Subito Music

All texts used by permission.