Description
Perusal Score
Video
Jessica Toupin, soprano voice
Brandon Nowakowski, soprano saxophone
Kristen Flanagan, piano
March 10, 2017
Bezanson Recital Hall
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Duration
Premiere
Instrumentation
Text
Program Notes
Notes for the original version for soprano, oboe, and string quintet:
It was an honor to have been asked to write this piece in celebration of Maestro James Freeman’s 70th birthday. After requesting some of Jim’s favorite texts, I fell immediately in love with “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” by Walt Whitman. Truly a marvel of poetic language, it is a coming of age of the artist, cradled by the timeless waves of the ocean; a young boy’s journey to comprehending the mysteries of life, love and death. The setting (to an excerpt from the poem) is simple, with a recurring lilting rhythm reminiscent of slowly undulating waves, a heartbeat or ticking of a clock. The lyrical melodies and arching form evolved from the elegant music inherent in the poem itself.
– Andrea Clearfield