Graduate Composition Seminar Virtual Concert
The works in this concert were written during the 2021 spring semester as part of the Graduate Composition Seminar, which took place online because of Covid restrictions.
I asked each composer in the class to write a short setting of a text of their choosing for one or two singers and hand percussion that the singers play themselves, using my piece Hyacinth Curl as a model. The composers were assigned to workshop the pieces individually over the course of many virtual meetings with the performers, revising each time. We also workshopped the pieces in class in successive stages, from the text choice through the conception, technical realization, and the coaching of the final performance. There was much discussion, and we also enjoyed virtual master classes from visiting composers who shared their thoughts on vocal music. The goal was a complete, recorded performance of each work at the end of the semester — reflecting its evolution through this real-time workshop process — and that is what you’ll be hearing in tonight’s concert, with Hyacinth Curl included at the end in a run-through from Jordan Hall. These performances are not polished in the manner of a traditional “concert music” presentation — they are meant to be informal and to showcase the singers in their own milieux, reflecting the current times.
–Kati Agócs
Watch Concert Stream:
Kou Muramatsu: Oku no Hosomichi -introduction- (おくのほそ道 序文)
Texts
月日は百代の過客にして、行かふ年も又旅人也。舟の上に生涯をうかべ、馬の口とらえて老をむかふる物は、日々旅にして旅を栖とす。古人も多く旅に死せるあり。予もいづれの年よりか、片雲の風にさそはれて、漂泊の思ひやまず、海浜にさすらへ、去年の秋江上の破屋に蜘の古巣をはらひて、やゝ年も暮、春立る霞の空に白川の関こえんと、そゞろ神の物につきて心をくるはせ、道祖神のまねきにあひて、取もの手につかず。もゝ引の破をつゞり、笠の緒付かえて、三里に灸すゆるより、松島の月先心にかゝりて、住る方は人に譲り、杉風が別墅に移るに、
草の戸も 住替る代ぞ ひなの家
面八句を庵の柱に懸置。
The sun and the moon are eternal voyagers; the years that come and go are travelers too. For those whose lives float away on boats, for those who greet old age with hands clasping the lead ropes of horses, travel is life, travel is home. And many are the men of old who have perished as they journeyed.
I myself fell prey to wanderlust some years ago, desiring nothing better than to be a vagrant cloud scudding before the wind. Only last autumn, after having drifted along the seashore for a time, had I swept away the old cobwebs from my dilapidated riverside hermitage. But the year ended before I knew it, and I found myself looking at hazy spring skies and thinking of crossing Shirakawa Barrier. Bewitched by the god of restlessness, I lost my peace of mind; summoned by the spirits of the road, I felt unable to settle down to anything. By the time I had mended my torn trousers, put a new cord on my hat, and cauterized my legs with moxa, I was thinking only of the moon at Matsushima. I turned over my dwelling to others, moved to a house belonging to Sanpû, and affixed the initial page of a linked-verse sequence to one of the pillars at my cottage.Even my grass-thatched hut
will have new occupants now:
a display of dolls.Translation by Helen Craig McCullough.
Artists- Lauren Guthridge, voice and harmonica
- Chihiro Asano, voice and harmonica
Brooks Clarke: I taste a liquor never brewed
Texts
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ endless summer days – From inns of molten Blue –
When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door –
When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!Emily Dickinson
Artists- Michaela Wright, voice and spoons
Marie Carroll: mountain flower
Texts
yes he said I was a flower of the mountain
yes so we are flowers all a womans body
yes that was one true thing he said in his life
and the sun shines for you today yesthe rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses
and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountainyes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls
used
or shall I wear a red yes
and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall
and I thought well as well him as another
and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yesand then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower
and first I put my arms around him yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume
yes and his heart was going like mad
and yes I said yes I will YesExcerpt from Ulysses by James Joyce
Artists- Litha Ashforth, voice and autoharp
SangUn Kang: Mirror for 2 voices and 2 wine glasses
Texts
이상 – 거울
거울속에는소리가없소
저렇게까지조용한세상은참없을것이오
거울속에도내게귀가있소
내말을알아듣는딱한귀가두개나있소
거울속의나는왼손잡이요
내악수를받을줄모르는-악수를모르는왼손이요
거울때문에나는거울속의나를만져보지를못하는구료마는
거울아니었던들내가어찌거울속나를만나보기만이라도했겠소
나는지금거울을안가졌소마는거울속에는늘거울속의내가있소
잘은모르지만외로된사업에골몰할게요
거울속의나는참나와는반대요마는또꽤닮았소
나는거울속의나를근심하고진찰할수없으니퍽섭섭하오Yi Sang – Mirror
There is no sound in the mirror.
There won’t be a world so quiet.
I have ears in the mirror.
I have two pathetic ears that don’t understand me.
I am left-handed in the mirror,
who don’t know how to accept my handshake and who don’t know what handshake is.
Although I couldn’t touch myself in the mirror because of the mirror,
how could I have met myself in the mirror if it wasn’t for the mirror?
I don’t have a mirror now, but there is always me in the mirror.
I have no idea about this but I will concentrate on a lonely business.
I am the opposite of myself in the mirror, but I am truly much the same.
I am very sad that I cannot worry and examine myself in the mirror.Translated by SangUn Kang
Artists- Minjin Ko, voice and wine glass
- Sujin Kim, voice and wine glass
Fang Xue: Let life be beautiful like summer flowers
Texts
Life, thin and light-off time and time again
Frivolous tirelessI heard the echo, from the valleys and the heart
Open to the lonely soul of sickle harvesting
Repeat outrightly, but also repeat the well-being of
Eventually swaying in the desert oasis
I believe I am
Born as the bright summer flowers
Do not withered undefeated fiery demon rule
Heart rate and breathing to bear the load of the cumbersome
BoredI heard the music, from the moon and carcass
Auxiliary extreme aestheticism bait to capture misty
Filling the intense life, but also filling the pure
There are always memories throughout the earth
I believe I am
Died as the quiet beauty of autumn leaves
No over no chaos, smoke gesture
Even wilt also retained the clear and the proud
OccultI hear love, I believe in love
Love is a pool of struggling blue-green algae
As desolate micro-burst of wind
Years stationed in the veins
I believe that all can hear
Even meet discrete, meet another oneself
Some can not grasp the moment
Left the East go West to look at the passing of the inevitable extraordinary
Look at me, with flowers on my head a long the way in full bloom
Frequently omitted, but also deeply moved by wind, frost, snow or rainPrajna Paramita, soon as soon as
life is florid summer flowers death an sere autumn leave
What do you care about havingRabindranath Tagore, from Stray Birds
Artists- Xiao Xiao, voice
- Xiaojie Ji, percussion
Kristian Josifoski: Le Vampire
Texts
Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,
De mon esprit humilié
Faire ton lit et ton domaine;
— Infâme à qui je suis lié
Comme le forçat à la chaîne,
Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,
Comme à la bouteille l’ivrogne,
Comme aux vermines la charogne
— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!
J’ai prié le glaive rapide
De conquérir ma liberté,
Et j’ai dit au poison perfide
De secourir ma lâcheté.
Hélas! le poison et le glaive
M’ont pris en dédain et m’ont dit:
«Tu n’es pas digne qu’on t’enlève
À ton esclavage maudit,
Imbécile! — de son empire
Si nos efforts te délivraient,
Tes baisers ressusciteraient
Le cadavre de ton vampire!»Artists- Tyler Bouque, voice and percussion
Kati Agócs: Hyacinth Curl, For 2 High Voices/4 Hand-bells (2015)
In Hyacinth Curl I transformed the essence of a ghazal (roughly speaking, the Persian equivalent of highly structured sonnet) into a song in English for two female singers and hand-bells that they play themselves. The hand-bells contribute to the purity of the sound world, playing a ceremonial role and helping the singers to stay in tune. The text, which I wrote myself, paraphrases a ghazal by Bibi Hayati, an early nineteenth-century noblewoman from Bam, in the Kerman province of Iran. Hayati embraced the principles of Sufi Gnosticism, although she adhered to the external principles of Islam, and her poetry reflects her ecstatic communion with God. I set the entire Ghazal in the original Farsi language in 2014, on commission by the Canada Council for the Arts for soprano Anne Harley, as Divani Hayati. I loved the exotic and pure sound world of this piece and wanted to make a version that more singers could perform. Hyacinth Curl was premiered on Hub New Music’s portrait concert of my chamber works in Boston’s Jordan Hall in January 2015. It is seven minutes in duration.
- Kati Agócs
Texts
Is this then the night of Power
Or merely your hair,
Is it the dawn-break, or your radiance?
In Beauty's divan
Is it an eternal first line?
Or just a couplet transcribed from your inky eyebrow?Is this rose-breath (oh is it rose-breath)
Or your ambrosial perfume?
Is it the tuba tree in paradise (in paradise)
Or your elegant, empathic stature?Is it a cypress grove?
Mongolian musk?
A chalice of the red wine of dawn-tide?
Ambergris?Is this scorching lightning,
Or fire from Mt. Sana'i?
An earthly paradise,
Or Heaven’s garden?
Is it your hyacinth curl (hyacinth curl)?
Your Narcissus-eye?
My own burning sigh?Everyone turns to pray
at a man-made shrine
My soul is a shrine
And it turns towards your face.Text by Kati Agócs; English paraphrases of Bibi Hayati: Ghazal #96, originally in Farsi
Artists- Emily Siar, voice and hand-bell
- Elaine Daiber, voice and hand-bell