Songs

text by Elisabeth Mehl Greene
commissioned by the Georgetown Epiphany Festival

The words to Beethoven's lied, "Der Kuß," describe the speaker's a stolen moment with a girl: "I was all alone with Chloë / and I wanted to kiss her / she said that she would scream..." The stolen moment progresses to a stolen kiss, and then the poem ends recounting a scream heard long after.  

Chloë Speaks imagines a #metoo reply from Chloë herself to the infamous lyric.  

text by Ryan Cummings

In "Row," Cummings ruminates on vocation, not knowing yet what will come of efforts toward our goals, yet faithfully striving toward a return we cannot see. 

▶ Listen to an excerpt from Row

public domain text by Carl Sandburg, from Chicago Poems  

• Between Two Hills

• Window

• Losses

• Troths

• Two

• Whitelight

• Back Yard
  
  Sandburg's plainspoken poems paint a picture of early 20th century Chicago, having relocated there four years prior to the publication of the set. His observations around the city and its haze of dreams remain timeless.
  
  

"Shine on, O moon of summer. / Shine to the leaves of grass,
catalpa and oak, / All silver under your rain to-night."

▶ Listen to an excerpt from Chicago Poems: Between Two Hills

▶ Listen to an excerpt from Chicago Poems: Back Yard

text by Paul R. Halupa

• • On Stafford's Methow River Poems: (mezzo-soprano)

  • Multnomah Falls (mezzo-soprano and tenor)

  • A Deepness of Wind (tenor)

  • A Question of Relevance (mezzo-soprano)

  • An Admonition (mezzo-soprano)

  • Wildhorse Canyon (tenor)

  • Midnight Connection (mezzo-soprano and tenor)

Halupa's poems traverse the Pacific Northwest and beyond to find significance in details of natural landscapes, disovering deep truths witnessing a single cardinal, roadside wildflowers, the Multnomah Falls, or the galaxies visible in the night sky. 

text in Portuguese by Rui Coias

Coias mediates on life's journey through time, gradually stepping into the place just beyond, inviting the audience to pause for beauty. 

public domain text in Spanish by Jorge Luis Borges

• Despedida

• Amorosa anticipación

Borges' poems of love in tension with distance speak to the suffering and resilience of the heart. 

"Entre mi amor y yo han de levantarse /
trecientas noches como trecientas paredes..."