Jennifer Hambrick reads her poem “The Never-ending Shore” before the world premiere of Michael Rene Torres’ in the never-ending shore of your tomorrows.
It’s a real honor when one of your own creations brings someone else a moment of reflection or inspiration. I am especially humbled to have been able to perform in the world-premiere performances recently of composer Michael Rene Torres’ new work in the never-ending shore of your tomorrows, inspired by my poem “The Never-ending Shore.”
Michael composed his new work on commission for the acclaimed Carpe Diem String Quartet, as part of their 15 for 15 Commissioning Project, celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the quartet’s founding.
Michael’s in the never-ending shore of your tomorrows is a profound and powerful work very much in the lineage of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings.
Like those works, Michael’s is elegiac and soulful. Michael reached right into the heart of my poem, itself a meditation on death and transcendence into nature, and created a contemplative musical space at once within and beyond time.
Here, I introduce one of the Carpe Diem String Quartet’s world-premiere performances of Michael Rene Torres’ in the never-ending shore of your tomorrows with a reading of my poem “The Never-ending Shore:”
It is my hope that Michael will arrange his piece for string orchestra, just as Samuel Barber and George Walker arranged their elegiac quartet gems for the warm sounds of the string orchestra. This work deserves to be performed and heard widely. It is music that, in a fractured and in all-too-inhuman world, gives listeners permission to sit quietly, to feel, and to be fully human.
The opening measures of Jacob Reed’s orchestral song setting of my poem “Thorn Tree.”
After months and months of preparation, dozens of conversations, a bevy of emails, and a whirlwind of ideas catalyzed by an inspiring and fruitful creative collaboration, the orchestral song setting of my poem “Thorn Tree” was given its world premiere along with those of two other new orchestral songs yesterday afternoon at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington.
Antoine Clark conducts members of the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra in William Walton’s Façade Suite No. 2, while I recite Edith Sitwell’s offbeat poetic texts.
The song settings were composed by Columbus composer Jacob Reed as part of “The Poet’s Song,” a project Reed created to unite poems and music in new art songs.
On a concert program entitled “The Words Beneath the Sound,” featuring musical works with sung or spoken texts, McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra artistic and music director Antoine Clark conducted the world premieres of Reed’s songs, the world premiere of Christopher Weait’s orchestral song settings of Emily Dickinson poems Emily’s Bees and Bells, Walton’s Façade Suite No. 2 – with poetry by Edith Sitwell, and, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of its world premiere, Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat, with a text adaptation I wrote specially for this performance. Soprano Chelsea Hart Melcher was featured as soloist in the Reed and Weait songs, and, in my role as midday host of WOSU Public Media’s Classical 101, I narrated the Walton and the Stravinsky.
I narrate my own text adaptation of Stravinsky’s iconic L’Histoire du Soldat with members of the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra.
As a guest artist, I worked with Thomas Worthington High School students on reading and writing poetry in two class visits. Students were also encouraged to participate in a poetry contest, which was judged by other members of the Worthington community, and the winner of which had his poem set to music by Reed and performed in yesterday’s concert. Poems by all of the entrants in the school poetry contest were displayed along with musical sketches by Reed and Weait, on a “Wall for Sharing” in the lobby at the MAC. The project’s culminating performance, “The Words Beneath the Sound,” yesterday at the McConnell Arts Center brought a rich program of poetry and music before the Worthington community.
This project hit home deeply with me. I grew up in Worthington and attended the Worthington Schools, and I know how committed this community is to quality in education and cultural enrichment. Yesterday’s concert brought a rich offering of poetry and music before the Worthington community in combinations that had never before been experienced in that way. I left the performance with the feeling that we all had experienced something unique and exciting.
From its dissonant opening “thorn” chord to its intentionally unsettled conclusion, Reed’s setting of my poem “Thorn Tree,” like his settings of the poems by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi and Worthington student poet Nat Hickman he selected for “The Poet’s Song,” explores the text’s emotional depth in rich, dramatic harmonies and sparkling orchestral color.
My deep gratitude to composer Jacob Reed for believing in my poem “Thorn Tree” enough to give it this sumptuous orchestral setting, to Antoine Clark for bringing me into “The Poet’s Song” project, and to the staff of the McConnell Arts Center for making the center an inspiring locus of creativity.
Christoper Weait, me, Antoine Clark, Chelsea Hart Melcher, and Jacob Reed onstage in the McConnell Arts Center’s Bronwyn Theatre. Photo: Jon Cook
I am extremely excited to announce my most recent poetry commission and an invitation to participate in an innovative project to catalyze the creation of new musical works with poetry.
The Big SCORE, a project created and funded by the Johnstone Fund for New Music, pairs six Columbus poets with six Columbus composers, each pair tasked to collaborate on the creation of a new work for chamber ensemble and spoken or sung text.
I am thrilled to be one of The Big SCORE’s invited poets and to have been paired with the phenomenal composer and percussionist Mark Lomax. The other artists invited to contribute to the project are poets Louise Robertson, Jeremy Glazier, Barbara Fant, Dionne Custer Edwards, and Scott Woods, and composers Jennifer Merkowitz, Linda Kernohan, Jennifer Jolley, Michael Torres, and Charlie Wilmoth.
The new works will be premiered in Columbus in spring 2019. I am deeply grateful to Zoe Johnstone for inviting me to participate in this extraordinary project.
entrants in the school poetry contest were displayed along with musical sketches by Reed and Weait, on a “Wall for Sharing” in the lobby at the MAC. The project’s culminating performance, “The Words Beneath the Sound,” yesterday at the McConnell Arts Center brought a rich program of poetry and music before the Worthington community.
jenniferhambrick.com 