(Audio coming soon.)
based on the eponymous painting by Julie Maren and poetry by Erin Robertson.
Program Note: For their 30th anniversary, Boulder’s acclaimed a cappella ensemble, the Ars Nova Singers, performed their collaborative and interdisciplinary project, “Shared Voices.” For this performance, they assembled works of Colorado visual artists, invited poets/writers to view these works and to create new poetry based on them, and then commissioned four Colorado composers to write new music for chorus using these words. Conor Abbott Brown set poetry by Erin Robertson which was inspired by a painting by Julie Maren. Brown framed Robertson’s and Maren’s works in a world of invented language and an unmoored, eerie musical landscapes.
Portals: Pollination
rustle of black crepe
a fly’s dull drone
acrid smoke of the charhouse
and still the moon shines down
illuminates our frail, striving forms
touches each ringed wreath of remembrance
gently,
tenderly-
hyphae fill in orbits
beetles strip all things to bone
we know none of the pain of
disassemblage
only the effort to be whole
to go about each round of days
and leave some fertile ground
for some other soul to tread
-Erin Robertson
Duration: c. 10 minutes
Year of composition: 2016
Commissioned and premiered by Ars Nova Singers