I have this collection of poetry from Pitt Press that I’ve been reading and reading since about 1992. A few poems by Ted Kooser caught my mind and I filed them away for a future text setting. When Katherine Crawford asked me to write a piece for her and electronics, I decided to finally act on these poems. The two poems, “Selecting a Reader” and “A Widow,” are set in a continuous musical framework even though there is no programatic reason or connection between the two.
Download the score: Selecting a Reader/A Widow
Here is the premiere performance sung by Katherine Crawford with David Morneau running the electronics at the Composers’ Voice concert in October 2012.
While I originally composed this work for voice and synth, I feel like this piece would work well for piano or any instrument that can play a bass line. When the octaves appear in measures 49, 59, and so on, perform some kind of meaningful flourish if performing on a monophonic instrument.