Premiere

Tessa Romano, mezzo-soprano; Ben Sieben, piano – University of Colorado Boulder – April 6, 2016

Program Note

              This piece was a three-way collaboration between myself, mezzo-soprano Tessa Romano, and her partner, poet Rushi Vyas. Rushi allowed me to look through a collection of his poetry, and I chose The Red-Headed Daredevil, the fourth in a set of six poems, though it stands very nicely on its own. The poem tells the story of a little girl and boy playing by the river with their father supervising, told from a narrator’s perspective. The poem is largely descriptive, and for that reason I gave it the feeling of a lullaby, but as the action picks up, the music moves with it.