{"id":1255,"date":"2018-04-02T12:55:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T16:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2018-04-02T12:55:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T16:55:57","slug":"recording-songs-by-student-composers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2018\/04\/recording-songs-by-student-composers.html","title":{"rendered":"Recording songs by student composers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2018\/02\/attacca-string-quartet-and-the-composer-performer-dynamic.html\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a> about the recording session we had in February with the Attacca String Quartet.\u00a0 We had another this past month, this time with soprano Lindsay Kesselman and pianist Daniel Pesca collaborating on four student songs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kyrie Antoinette: <em>Old News<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Derek Wesley Arnold: <em>The Song of the Shirt<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Alicia Bachorik: <em>How Do I Love Thee?<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Jessica Buford: <em>They Were Miners<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jessica\u2019s song references her upbringing in West Virginia, where her grandfather gave a lifetime to the mines in order to support his family.\u00a0 The lyrics, which she wrote, capture his plight in brief, suggestive lines:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Three long months laid off<br \/>\nbread-stretched supper<br \/>\na scary cough<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As the piece progresses, the vocal line becomes increasingly choked off until, in the final phrases, audible inhalations &#8212; gasps \u2013 create a powerful image of a miner\u2019s broken-down lungs.\u00a0 \u00a0The piano part is appropriately sparse and dark, and Pesca made the most of it, providing just the right balance with the low tessitura of the vocal line.<\/p>\n<p>Alicia Bachorik\u2019s pair of love songs, <em>Anticipation<\/em> and <em>Action<\/em>, inhabit a very different realm.\u00a0 The poems, by Marion Strobel and Helen Hoyt, trace complementary scenarios: <em>Anticipation<\/em> is about unrequited (but ever-hopeful) love; <em>Action<\/em> presents a quiet scene of domestic joy, that of awaking a lover with kisses.\u00a0 Each song has a natural &#8212; though complex &#8212; flow, with constantly shifting metrical groupings that reflect the intricate rhythms of the text.\u00a0 Lindsay Kesselman not only nailed the asymmetrical rhythms, she made them sound effortless and beautiful.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Song of the Shirt<\/em> is an 1840 poem by Thomas Hood decrying the wretched conditions of England\u2019s working poor.\u00a0 Derek Arnold brings their plight to the present in his setting, with crunchy harmonies and a tightly pensive vocal line.\u00a0 The word \u201cstitch\u201d is whispered repeatedly, capturing the sharp drudgery of the labor.<\/p>\n<p>Kyrie Antoinette\u2019s <em>Old News<\/em>, with her own lyrics, was an unusual blend: I think of it as \u201cBlues Meets Zen\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Don\u2019t be open<br \/>\nDon\u2019t be closed<br \/>\nSow all the seeds<br \/>\nBut don\u2019t let them grow<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In response to the composer\u2019s request to make the vocals \u201cbreathy,\u201d Lindsay adopted a more intimate vocal style that took advantage of the microphone\u2019s ability to project sound.\u00a0 The result was like a confidential conversation, or an interior monologue.<\/p>\n<p>When they finished recording, Kesselman and Pesca gathered the composers and other attendees around to share their thoughts about composition, interpretation, and the new-music community.\u00a0 Their insights were upbeat but grounded in reality.\u00a0 \u201cThe new music community is a generous one,\u201d said Lindsay.\u00a0 \u201cA lot of people sharing a vision and working together to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1256\" style=\"width: 696px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/kesselman-recording-session.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1256\" class=\" wp-image-1256\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/kesselman-recording-session-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"686\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/kesselman-recording-session-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/kesselman-recording-session-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/kesselman-recording-session-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1256\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">l to r: Jessica Buford, Alicia Bachorik, Daniel Pesca, Lindsay Kesselman, Derek Arnold, Kyrie Antoinette<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote here about the recording session we had in February with the Attacca String Quartet.\u00a0 We had another this past month, this time with soprano Lindsay Kesselman and pianist Daniel Pesca collaborating on four student songs: Kyrie Antoinette: Old News Derek Wesley Arnold: The Song of the Shirt Alicia Bachorik: How Do I Love [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}