SKU: CF.CM9122
ISBN 9780825868474. UPC: 798408068479. 6.875 X 10.5 inches. Key: A major.
Set to his own inspirational text, Prayer by Ricky Ian Gordon is a heartfelt appeal to the best qualities in human nature. This selection, by the noted composer of the new opera, The Grapes of Wrath, will be very attractive to young performers. The setting is basically homophonic, with the lovely, singable lines characteristic of Gordon's music, and a rich and colorful piano accompaniment that enhances the reflective mood of this sensitive piece. High School and above. 7:29.
SKU: CF.PL122X
ISBN 9780825885402. UPC: 798408085407. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: PR.114422760
ISBN 9781491135785. UPC: 680160687855.
A heartfelt memorial to the composer’s sister, SAMBA FOR SUSAN bears a tempo marking of “Sensual,†and this 5-minute elegy is set as a slow bossa nova, full of the jazz flavor and syncopations of samba tradition. In the hands of this celebrated opera and theater composer, Gordon’s samba is a drama cast in a dance feel. Themes alternate, always returning transformed into fresh textures at each recurrence, creating a work that is catchy on first hearing, and reveals its depth upon repeated hearings.
SKU: PR.111402890
ISBN 9781491134672. UPC: 680160685264.
Whatâ??s in a name? While the title is French for â??Eight Flower Songs,â? the texts are all in English. The poemsâ?? flowers metaphorically evoke fragrance, love and loss, life and death, rebirth and regrowth. Perhaps the texture and beauty of Gordonâ??s music are themselves French. The 20-minute song cycle draws on poems from Wordsworth to Dorothy Parker, as well as from contemporary poets including the composer himself.When So-Chung Shinn came to me with the idea of commissioning a song cycle with her spectacular husband Tony Lee, she had in mind something having to do with flowers. Tony had asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said she wanted to be behind the creating of a new work. Lucky me, I was the recipient of the commission. So-Chung sent me a little description of all the flowers she loves, but I had to take the idea and create a narrative in my head.It is always a matter of pleasing the commissioner, yet coming up with something you can get behind and hear music for as well. I already knew I wanted to use my â??Tulipsâ? poem which is really about the arc of a relationship as represented through the life span of the Tulips, and, in many ways, disappointment; and Dorothy Parkerâ??s â??One Perfect Rose,â? which is wry, bitter, cynical, and funny, in a way only Dorothy Parker can so pithily express.I thought of Jane Kenyonâ??s exquisite â??Peonies at Dusk,â? because knowing she died so young (46) of leukemia, the poem has such a particular resonance, almost humanizing the Peonies, casting the moon as a sentient being, illustrating so beautifully how connected everything is, alive here, and revolving around these exquisite blossoms. Then, I remembered her husband Donald Hallâ??s poem â??Her Garden,â? which he wrote after Jane died, his grief intermingled with his inability to care for what she had created, to keep alive what so represented her aliveness, broken as he was, and I felt I already had a story.I found the Wordsworth, because it felt like pure joy to me, but also, if each of the songs has a color in my head, â??The Daffodilsâ? is pure yellow and a good place to start. My partner Kevin and I live on a lake, and every year, the first Daffodils, the shock of yellows, the oranges, the blinding whites, after the long snowy winters, sing of the newness that is about to enfold us in its green miraculousness.At first, the cycle ended with the Langston Hughes poem â??Cycle,â? or â??New Flowers,â? because it was lovely, and about rebirth, which is obviously optimistic, and apt, but then, my friend Telmo Dos Santos, a wonderful Canadian poet whom I met at Banff, sent me his poem â??Afterlife With Lilacs,â? having no idea what I was working on. I felt I had to add it because it is so dazzling, and it immediately felt like the missing link. Finally, there were unfortunately rights issues, namely, we could not, no how, get in touch with the Langston Hughes Estate, after so many happy collaborations.After almost a yearâ??s frustration, I wrote my own text, â??Play, Orpheus,â? which ended up being fortuitous, because the first time I met So-Chung, she entered the room and the most exquisite scent of Lillies of the Valley, Muguet de Bois, filled the room. I went right over to her and rudely put my nose to her neck, for the intoxication of the scent. So â??Play, Orpheusâ? is for So-Chung, to remind us of the precious treasures of this world flowers remind us of. Everything and everyone lives and dies, lives and dies. Death and resurrection.And of course, this is music, this is song, so the inclusion of the God of music, Orpheus, seems apt. Huit Chansons de Fleurs is really about what flowers represent, their radiance, their flickering impermanence, the way they are used to celebrate, as well as to mourn...... and of course, their fragrance. Their fragrance.Ricky Ian GordonJuly 28, 2021.
SKU: PR.11642010S
UPC: 680160682867. English.
SKU: PR.111402850
ISBN 9781491132005. UPC: 680160680627. What the Living Do by Maria Howe.
The poetry of Marie Howe has a special place in Ricky Ian Gordon’s heart and mind, both haunting and soothing. WITHOUT MUSIC is a five-movement work in which Howe’s words and Gordon’s music together give voice to longterm grieving for a loved one lost to AIDS. The work was commissioned by Music Academy of the West for their 2019 Marilyn Horne Song Competition Winners’ Recital Tour.For a long time, I have been in dialogue with the poems of Marie Howe. Some poets speak so directly to you that they become a second voice inside you. I have so many of her poems memorized, and I speak them so often because at certain moments I know she will say it better than me.Many I have set or tried to set and felt dissatisfied and put them away. Marie’s poems are so plain spoken, you want them to feel, if you are taking the trouble to set them to music, that the songs are plain spoken as well... because it would be criminal to set Marie’s poems in a way that obscures the words and makes them feel distant or remote.I first heard Kelsey Lauritano in a Master Class that Stephanie Blythe was giving at Juilliard. I was bowled over by her poise, the beauty of her voice, her engagement with her body and her connection to text. She is a real artist through and through. I wanted to create a cycle for her where it felt like she was talking to the audience in the most intimate way possible. I wanted to be able to see her heart.These five poems are from Marie’s book, “What the Living Do,†the book which was published eight years after her brother Johnny died at 28 from AIDS. The book is impossibly beautiful, as clear as a spring in a remote forest... the poems simply tell the story of Johnny’s illness and Marie’s relationship with it, and him... as Marie would put it, they are “how some of it happened.â€I lost my partner Jeffrey Grossi to AIDS in 1996, so needless to say, this book, and Marie’s poems were balm for me... one of the myriad ways I got through an excruciating time, as Jeffrey’s death followed practically, the death of my entire community. I feel bad, and even awkward, that this is still so much a part of my story, but it is. Is it PTSD, or just, not wanting to forget? I don’t know. But these songs are steeped in that time.
SKU: PR.114422750
ISBN 9781491135792. UPC: 680160687862.
This beautiful slow movement takes full advantage of the string quartet’s richly expressive potential. LORRAINE is a plaintive aria for violin with string trio accompaniment, balanced with contrasting textures from the “tutti†string ensemble. A remembrance for the composer’s sister, it is a perfect work to program on memorial concerts, and as a 6-minute selection on string quartet recital programs.