Fragments from the Wasteland (2024)
a large-scale multi-ensemble work
I. The Fire Sermon for SATTBB choir and electronics
II. Death By Water for piano trio
III. Burial of the Dead for baritone voice, trumpet, trombone, and bass clarinet
IV. What the Thunder Said for alto saxophone and percussion
Project Info
A large-scale concert-length five-movement work, Fragments from the Wasteland is a music-drama, for text and music, and a consortium commission; based on a re-interpretation of T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Wasteland, is juxtaposed with selected “mask” poems by contemporary women poet-Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Second April. The movements/pieces were written for HEX Vocal Ensemble, Galan Trio, loadbang ensemble, Bent Frequency, and Brightwork newmusic, with the last movement (In-Progress) culminating in a final chamber concerto.
In these works I explored the sources of my own compositional craft—as a woman composer, educated in the age of modernist techniques of abstraction, I sought to contextualize the influences of modernism on my own work, with a language of melodic expressionism, evolving a translated “language: of text into music, and creating historical drama through the setting of T.S. Eliot’s poem The Wasteland, with selected works referenced in Eliot’s text, and “mask” poems by women poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sarah Teasdale, Elinor Wylie.
Rental Info
Each movement may be individual purchased and performed. To inquire about performing the entire work, please contact us for a rental quote.