Broadcast: Contemporary Musical Arts: Aoife O’Donovan, Prodigal Daughter - Americana Revisited
This concert was originally held on February 15, 2023. It is being rebroadcasted on YouTube on March 9 at 7:30pm.
Stream here: https://youtu.be/MIoewN4fLeI
Aoife O’Donovan with CMA students present a program of contemporary American folk songs, including original songs by CMA students, new takes on traditional music, and performances with O’Donovan of Bullfrogs Croon Suite and The King of All Birds.
GRAMMY Award-winning artist Aoife O’Donovan operates in a thrilling musical world beyond genre. Deemed “a vocalist of unerring instinct” by the New York Times, she has released three critically-acclaimed and boundary-blurring solo albums including her most recent record, 2022’s boldly orchestrated and literarily crafted Age Of Apathy. Recorded and written over the course of Winter and Spring 2021 with acclaimed producer Joe Henry, Age Of Apathy is “stunning” (Rolling Stone) and “taps into the propulsion of prime Joni Mitchell” (Pitchfork). Age of Apathy is nominated for multiple awards, including a GRAMMY nomination for Best Folk Album and two GRAMMY nominations for Prodigal Daughter featuring Allison Russell. Elsewhere, the song B61 was awarded 2022 Song Of The Year by Folk Alliance International.
A savvy and generous collaborator, Aoife is one third of the group I’m With Her with bandmates Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz. The trio’s debut album See You Around was hailed as “willfully open-hearted” by NPR Music. I’m With Her earned an Americana Music Association Award in 2019 for Duo/Group of the Year, and a GRAMMY-award in 2020 for Best American Roots Song.
O’Donovan spent the preceding decade as co-founder and front woman of the string band, Crooked Still and is the featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo Sessions - the group with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. She has appeared as a featured vocalist with over a dozen symphonies including the National Symphony Orchestra, written for Alison Krauss, performed with jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas, and spent a decade as a regular contributor to the radio variety shows “Live From Here” and “A Prairie Home Companion.”
Aoife O’Donovan | The King of All Birds
CMA Chamber Ensemble
Itay Dayan, bass clarinet
Aiden Coleman, trombone
Carson McHaney, Hannah O’Brien, violin
Katie Purcell, viola
Karl Henry, cello
Jamie Eliot, electric bass
Carles Pereira Romero, drums
Eden MacAdam-Somer, directorText
Look out, look out
Here I come now, fists out
I'm a fighter bird
I'm a Harrier hawk, a wild flock
I keep time by the city clock
When the moon is steady, I'll find you
I'm not lucky and I'm not scared
There could be goldmine anywhereAnyone that I might want in this world
They're asleep in the arms of another girl
Who will they be when the lights come up?
Everyone that I ever loved in my life
Now calls somebody else their wife
Who am I to you?Get up, get up
Get it together and climb on up
To the top of the tree
I'm an owl now, a lonely owl
Who, who, where, what, why, when?
How the hell did I get this far without you
Pull my feathers one by one
Put 'em in your pocket when I'm goneAnyone that I might want in this world
They're asleep in the arms of another girl
Who will they be when the lights come up?
Everyone that I ever loved in my life
Now calls somebody else their wife
Who am I to you?Who am I to you? Am I just anyone?
Am I the only one?
Who am I to you? Am I just anyone?
Am I the only one?Come on, come on
Put me back together, let me soldier on
I'm the King of it all
I'm a little wren, I'm happiest when
I hitch a ride on the wing of a friend
Looking down on everything then
When the road gets weary love
Remember who I'm dreaming ofArtists- Aoife O'Donovan, voice, electric guitar
Emily Mitchell | Dawn
Program note
This song is about turning from brokeness and coming into the light with full confidence in the grace and love of the Father.
Soarin' away
I’m in pieces yet
Unafraid of my brokenness
Carryin' on
To the sunlit morn
Where the dawn will reveal
All the tears of the nightI’m gonna fall
I’m gonna fall
Turn from it all
Down on my knees, I’ll fallSurely now
In the light of the morn
The sound of Your voice is bright
Dark is as day
Love has cast out
Every fear of my brokennessI’m gonna fall
I’m gonna fall
Turn from it all
Down on my knees, I’ll fallYour loving hand, it leads as a Father
I’m washed in the water
On the bank of the river
And I’m falling
Into Your arms
Can You carry me?I'm gonna walk
’m gonna walk
Give You my all
I’m gonna walk
With YouArtists- Emily Mitchell, voice, guitar
- Clayton Hancock, violin
Crooked Still | The Peace of Wild Things/Dayblind
Text
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell BerryArtists- Serena Bixby, voice
- Kaitlyn Knudsvig, violin
- Karl Henry, cello
- G Korth-Rockwell, banjo
- Jamie Eliot, double bass
Aoife O'Donovan | Jupiter
Text
Write me a letter
Write it by hand
Tell me everything you wanna do before the end
I think we’ll make it another seventy years
At a hundred and one the only color we’ll see is clearThis future’s blacker than a black hole
And I know it’s hard to get a read on when’s the right time to fold
If you keep on keeping on and keep your eyes fixed on the road
You’ll make it, oh‘Til we are star stuff
Steady in a coal mine sky
Wherever you go I go
I hit Jupiter and hang a right
It’s a slow ride, it’s a slow rideEarth's shifting
Temperatures rise
But I’ll never forget the way your skin tastes in July
It tastes like peaches, tastes like firelight
When the park stops burning we can saddle up our bikesIf this city
Should underwater go
I will gather up sticks and I will build my love a boat
Float down the river - float gently down the stream
Pinch me til I bleed, I want to see how hard I’m dreamingArtists- Delfina Cheb Terrab, voice
- Solomon Caldwell, double bass
- Carles Pereira Romero, drums
Donovan Woods, Aoife O'Donovan | Iowa
Text
I am waiting for this book to get good
I do not have your patience
So I'm driving up to Chicago
I'm getting weird looks at gas stationsI did not bring a winter coat
I do not have your foresight
A holistic practitioner told me once
It's why I will not live a long life
I am trying to remember where I gave up
If it was not in IowaIowa
Somewhere in the middle of the middle of the Great Plains I saw
A little girl waving her hand out of the window of a car
Saying goodbye to her maIowa
Where the tall grass prairie used to ripple like the ocean in the breeze
And the hummingbirds still suckled from the flowers in the trees
It'd bring you to your kneesI can imagine my whole life
Sweet and never-ending
In every house I float by
But they'd never let me blend inI called a taxi in Des Moines
I met him at the corner
When I asked about his army coat
He said he would not tell a foreignerI am waiting for this book to get good
And you won't meet me halfway
So I'm driving up to Chicago
I am sorry to keep you waitingArtists- Kaia Berman Peters, voice, accordion
- G Korth-Rockwell, voice, guitar
Edward Sun (ar. Sun and Kevin Crawley) | All On Me
Program note
When one doubts a sacred belief, the dimmest night creeps in - a mighty warrior puts down their sword and flees your world without leaving anything…similarly, one's soul may be ripped apart in a relationship, leaving one feeling “like it was all on me.”
Foolish optimism in a deep-end life
Drives a wedge between wrong and right
Now I say a votive prayer
Surrendering to all my failureWandering around the forest in the moonlight
resembles a study of beauteous tragic
I'm encased in a fine glaze of ice
While the cold bites deep at the tideJust laugh and concede it, my favorite one
You’re the splattering rain hitting my world for once
With such force that I put my swords away
But I’m begging you to stay
Entwined in a whiskey hazeA thousand suns shine in a boundless sky
Cut tingling scars in my body and soul alive
Who dares to carry conviction
Now that we are all half brokenWandering around the forest in the moonlight
resembles a study of beauteous tragic
I tried to hold my secret tight
And bury it out of sightJust laugh and concede it, my favorite one
You know the ropes - and you bound my heart for once
With such strength that I gave all of me to you
You know I was your man
I was your manPacked up the baggage, captive to your message
You’re under my skin, you possess all my senses
A snowy reverie in this frozen pile of dust
I grow small as I lay down, keep thinking of
All the things you did to me, and I just can’t stop wondering
What a mortifying scene
Ending up so silently
Like it was all on meWandering around the forest in the moonlight
Resembles a study of beauteous tragic
I throw away all of the memory
Let it float and drift with the tideArtists- Edward Sun, voice, guitar
- Emily Mitchell, voice, electric guitar
- Mitsuru Yonezaki and Caroline Smoak, violin
- Kevin Crawley and Philip Rawlinson, viola
- Giulia Haible, cello
- Jamie Eliot, double bass
Traditional American | Lulu Gal
CMA Bluegrass Ensemble
Sarah Matsushima, voice
Carson McHaney, violin
Thatcher Harrison, guitar, voice
G Korth-Rockwell, banjo
Giulia Haible, cello, voice
Jamie Eliot, double bass
Greg Liszt, directorGiulia Haible | Alive
Text
I’m always tired when I wake up
And the sun always fails to cheer me up
My friends are happy but they
No longer fill my cupWhy do the seasons feel the same
When I sit around waiting for them to change
I tell myself to stick a-
Round but I’m just going more insaneTake me on a long car ride
To the West Coast ocean side
We can see the changing tides
And feel aliveI don’t care if it’s a lie
If you don’t love me I won’t mind
I’m okay with this goodbye
If I can feel aliveTime is a fleeting cloud above
And it moves too fast for the speed of love
Days turn into minutes and they
Can only slow down when we unplug
Take a walk through the wilderness
See that forests are nothing but a beautiful mess
Like a bird I have built a tangled nest
And one day it will fall to the ground to restArtists- Giulia Haible, voice, piano
- Kaityn Knudsvig, violin, voice
- Karl Henry, cello, voice
Woody Guthrie/Grant Beale | This Land is Your Land
Program note
Interpreting traditional songs carries with it the burden of confronting the cultural significance that a piece carries. Originally a scathing critique of capitalism, and privatization, This Land is Your Land, written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 was shortly after co-opted, propagandized, and sung by schoolchildren across the country with defanged lyrics. It was my goal to reinstate these often forgotten verses in order to highlight their relevance 83 years later. The main theme I interpreted in my reading of Guthrie's lyrics was entropy, a decay of possibility, and opportunity, which I was taught in school were guiding principles of the American experiment. I interpreted this entropic process through two principles of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, and the Poincaré recurrence theorem, I interpreted these mathematical principles through Xenakis' stochastic performance practices and vocabulary creating emergent moments of structure which rise organically from the choices of the performers.
- Grant BealeAs I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway,
I saw below me that golden valley,
This land was made for you and me.I roamed and I rambled, and I followed my footsteps
To the sparking sands of her diamond deserts,
All around me a voice was sounding,
This land was made for you and me.In the square of the city, in the shadow of the steeple,
By the relief office I saw my people,
As they stood there hungry,
I stood there whistlin if,
This land was made for you and me.Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,
Was a great big sign that said, "Private Property,"
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.(This verse is attributed to Pete Seeger)
Maybe you've been working as hard as you're able,
But you've just got crumbs from the rich man's table,
And maybe you're thinking, was it truth or fable,
That this land was made for you and me.This land is your land, This land is my land,
From California to the New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.Artists- Roman Barten Sherman, voice
- Michele Zimmerman, violin
- Yoona Kim, ajaeng
- Avi Randall, viola
- Karl Henry, cello
- Solomon Caldwell, double bass
- Jiangcheng Jeff Guan, woodblock
Avi Randall | Time Flies By
Text
i walked into his room
deep in his work discovering life
he said that he’d change the world
one day at a time but time will fly byi sat with him and looked at his notes
and looked at his face filled with wonder
he said that he’d found the key
a way to slow time when time flies byon the table alone in a glass bowl
there was a small animal
it looked up at us with a look in its eye
and told us our time that time will fly byi said please come out of this room
your friends miss you your family does too
you’ve studied for so long alone
aren’t you concerned that time will fly by?he said his animal can speak
but not with his words he’s learning so much
yet his pet shows signs of a sadness
the sadness of time of time that flies byand all alone in its glass bowl
the creature curled up and cried
it’s lost from its home it misses his friends
it knows that their time oh their time will fly bythe days turned to months turned to years
and everyone he knew moved away or died
he only knew his own little life
he didn’t seem to care when their time flew byhis only friend was locked in that bowl
a friend who was trapped and had no choice
a friend who grew old alone with nothing to do
as his time flew byone day i found a letter
from my long lost friend
it said that he’d gone to travel the stars
to find his friend a new home to livehe said he’d never come back to earth
for everyone he knew is long dead
he said that his friend is all he has left
he’ll live with his guilt
till his time has long goneArtists- Avi Randall, voice, mountain dulcimer
- Tejas Nair, esraj
Aoife O'Donovan (arr. Jeremy Kittel) | Bull Frogs Croon Suite
Night Fishing
The Darkness
Valentine
Text
Night Fishing
The water is a glaze
Like loneliness at ease with itself
I cast and close my eyes for the whir out across the water
The line striking the surface
And sinkingI like waiting
For it to settle on the bottom
Then I jig it up a little
I imagine
The lure in utter dark
I play it lightly. Fish rise
Just shy of the surface
They play their glints
Off the moon on the water
I see too my own lonelinessIt's not too big
And it breathes easily
Soon, it may pretend it's rain
Soon, it may pretend it's rainRain blurs the water
There is nothing wrong
With rain
I take a deep breath and I cast
And cast
The Darkness
Say you are out for a walk
And somewhere through the trees
You walk out of everything in your headOr off by a window in thought
And what you look out to
A crease of trees perhaps you don’t see at all
But what you are thinking there in the trees
You might also likeAs you open like this through a window
Or walk and walk into a glazing
Then say darkness fallsDarkness farther back than the cave you felt into
Farther back than violence to animalsDarkness farther back than water you dove into
Hands in front of your face
To feel your way down and know
This darkness did not begin did not gatherThen something backing off it seems as you come in
Re-renters you and crosses you over
The sleep of the living and the dead
Valentine
Big frogs croak
Baby frogs slither;
I’d rather go broke
Than not be with herBull frogs croon
Slugs wiggle wider;
I’d live in ruin
To lie down beside herArtists- Aoife O'Donovan, voice, guitar
- Carson McHaney, violin
- G Korth-Rockwell, mandolin
- Katie Purcell, viola
- Solomon Caldwell, double bass