soprano and piano (2020)
Ashley Becker, soprano; Keith Chambers, piano
details
Duration: 3:00
Commissioned by: The Bellingham Symphony
Premiere: November 8, 2021
Ashley Becker, soprano; Keith Chambers, piano
purchase
DIGITAL / PDF
Score — $15
Digital performance materials will be emailed within 1-3 business days.
program note
The Song-Spattered Sky was written in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown. When the simplest outings into the world seemed fraught, I found comfort in our garden, a safe outdoor space. In the absence of usual inputs from the outside world and left to my thoughts for company, I found myself tending to my own experience in a way that resembled working in the garden. Some activities, thoughts, and habits needed to be pulled like weeds, and others grew strong and tall with water, sunlight, and a bit of careful attention.
My friend Farnaz Fatemi‘s poetry captured the sense of that time for me.
Text:
Incantation
My patch of dirt
is like the belly of the buddha which I’d rub, if I could.
I weed it free of invasives.
Gloves keep the sting
of the leaves off my fingers. Nettle, bindweed, oxalis.
Cultivate soil to change the future. Here’s a seed to burst
from its hull and bring news.
Or, if not news, a daydream, furtive, caught by chance
from the song-spattered sky.
— Farnaz Fatemi (Used with permission)