The students' pieces will be presented alongside a new work by their teacher, Roberto Pace, the Robert Capanna Fundamentals of Music Distinguished Faculty Chair. All are world premieres being performed for the very first time, and the project is funded by the American Composers Forum.
These new pieces are the product of a year-long concentration on the intersection of words and music, plus a collaboration with Philadelphia-based poet Lamont Steptoe, a writer, in Pace's words, "in the tradition of Whitman and Ginsberg." For students in Pace's Advanced Music Theory and Composition classes, it was the first time they had set poetry to music or worked with professional musicians.
Pace and his students started out with a Bach chorale, then moved on to more advanced examples by Brahms, Debussy and other greats. "We would talk about the words: about how the composer dramatically draws out the words, when the words have to be allowed to bloom, and when do you push the text forward," Pace says.
Roberto Pace leads members of the ensemble during rehearsal |
- "Chaos, spun gold of the wind" by Immanuel Mykyta-Chomsky
- "Wails and woundings" by Jeremy Gonzalo
- "Juju clowns and holy men" by Shuvanon Shaheed
- "Inside the noise" by Alison Hsieh
- "Straight up in the air" by Maurice Jackson
Pace says that when Steptoe heard the pieces in a workshop setting several months ago, he was blown away, saying, "I'm so humbled that you have thought about my words and made them your own." In turn, the students enjoyed the experience of working with Steptoe - "the person whose brain and body the poem came from," in Pace's words - and gaining his perspective on the words they chose to set.
Pianist and SMS faculty member Linda Reichert and baritone Jackson Williams |
All of the student works, as well as Pace's own "Somewhere without a map," will be performed by an ensemble of piano, clarinet (played by SMS faculty members Linda Reichert and Arne Running, respectively) and double bass accompanying soprano and baritone soloists.
Come out to support these students and their first forays into composition! The recital is at 6:30 pm on Saturday, June 2, 2012 at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. 8855 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia. Tickets for the 8:00 pm concert to follow are $18/$27 in advance and $20/$30 at the door.
Thanks for this posting Dave - and your photos!
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