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String quartet (optional amplification) and fixed electronics.
Original version (2016, Movements I–III): approx. 18 minutes.
Extended version (2017, adds Introduction and Interlude): approx. 30 minutes.
I found the impetus for this work in the last writings of three South American poets: Violeta Parra (Chile), Alfonsina Storni (Argentina), and Ana Cristina Cesar (Brazil). I was moved by their final works and compelled to explore the weight of the roles they played, as women artists, as protectors of Indigenous Peoples’ culture, and as figures in the 20th-century feminist current. Parra’s “Gracias a la vida” [Thanks to Life] (1966) simultaneously held gratefulness, appreciation, and mourning in a song that became an icon of 20th-century Latin American folk culture; Storni’s “Voy a dormir” [I’m going to sleep] (1938) describes her transition to death in a magical-realist poem, where she will be welcomed and comforted by fantastic sea creatures; and Cesar’s “Samba-Canção” (Slow Samba), a poem with an ambiguous tone (between crude and funny) describing the multiple identities she had performed in her search for approval. The fixed media and video, gathered on research trips through Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, include Parra’s own Cuatro Venezolano, the coastal site where Storni died, and an archival recording of Cesar—in an attempt to materialize their memory.
This work was made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation.
Premiered by the JACK Quartet at Stamps Auditorium at Michigan State University in March 2016.
This download includes: Digital full scores (PDF). This work exists in two versions; both are included in this download:
The original, shorter version, which includes Mvt I – Violeta, Mvt II – Alfonsina, and Mvt III – Ana C.
The extended version, which includes two optional sections: Introduction and Interlude.
String quartet (optional amplification) and fixed electronics.
Original version (2016, Movements I–III): approx. 18 minutes.
Extended version (2017, adds Introduction and Interlude): approx. 30 minutes.
I found the impetus for this work in the last writings of three South American poets: Violeta Parra (Chile), Alfonsina Storni (Argentina), and Ana Cristina Cesar (Brazil). I was moved by their final works and compelled to explore the weight of the roles they played, as women artists, as protectors of Indigenous Peoples’ culture, and as figures in the 20th-century feminist current. Parra’s “Gracias a la vida” [Thanks to Life] (1966) simultaneously held gratefulness, appreciation, and mourning in a song that became an icon of 20th-century Latin American folk culture; Storni’s “Voy a dormir” [I’m going to sleep] (1938) describes her transition to death in a magical-realist poem, where she will be welcomed and comforted by fantastic sea creatures; and Cesar’s “Samba-Canção” (Slow Samba), a poem with an ambiguous tone (between crude and funny) describing the multiple identities she had performed in her search for approval. The fixed media and video, gathered on research trips through Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, include Parra’s own Cuatro Venezolano, the coastal site where Storni died, and an archival recording of Cesar—in an attempt to materialize their memory.
This work was made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation.
Premiered by the JACK Quartet at Stamps Auditorium at Michigan State University in March 2016.
This download includes: Digital full scores (PDF). This work exists in two versions; both are included in this download:
The original, shorter version, which includes Mvt I – Violeta, Mvt II – Alfonsina, and Mvt III – Ana C.
The extended version, which includes two optional sections: Introduction and Interlude.