Thursdays at Noon | Midori Koga with Haven Trio: Storytelling Through Music and Poetry

HAVEN: Storytelling through Poetry and Music

Lindsay Kesselman, soprano; 
Kimberly Cole Luevano, clarinet; 
Midori Koga, piano

Livestream available on our YouTube Channel.

PROGRAM:

DE OTRO MUNDO (2022)
Ivette Herryman Rodriguez (b. 1982)
Poetry by José Julián Martí Pérez (1853-1895)
En los ojos llevo un dolor
Un reflejo mío
Paisajes de otro mundo 

Funded by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund.

all that we are given we cannot hold (2022)
David Biedenbender (b. 1984)
Poetry by Robert Fanning (b. 1970)
The Darkness, Literal and Figurative
One and a Half Miles Away from Dying                                
Watching My Daughter Through the One Way Mirror of a Preschool Observation Room
The Thorn Birds
Model Nation
Body of Work
Cuttings

Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University. Many thanks to the generous donation of John and Monique Ellsworth which made this concert possible.

Program Notes:

DE OTRO MUNDO
Music by Ivette Herryman Rodríguez
Poetry by José Julián Martí Pérez

DE OTRO MUNDO is a song cycle composed for HAVEN Trio with the generous support of a Chamber Music America Grant (2021). The three songs in the cycle use text from the poem Domingo Triste (Sad Sunday) by José Julián Martí Pérez, a Cuban author from the 19th century. There is a deep sadness in the text that is related to being far from home. Personally, the music I wrote for this cycle is inspired by my memories of Cuba, and what it has felt like for me to not live there anymore.

The first song portrays through music the pain that the poet carries and is rooted on the theme of home. I use two musical devices: minor sixths, inspired by a memory of learning the song La tarde by Sindo Garay very early in my musical studies. Minor sixths are a taste of home for me. As the song develops, the minor sixths change to other intervals, but remain an essential building block of the music. The second device is what I consider to be a hallmark of Cuban music, which is a turn figure: E-F-E-D#-E (up a minor second and down a minor second with a return to the starting note). I have heard this gesture in many songs and jazz-like improvisations and compositions by Cuban artists.

The second song is inspired by the line in the poem that reads: “ya en mi no queda más que un reflejo mío” (“there is no longer in me more than a reflection of me”). Two musical motives from the first song are recreated in this song, and a progression of chords which roots move by thirds are at the core of this music. The character of the music is somewhat lighter, although the sadness of the poem remains present.

The third song is inspired by two contrasting images in the text: “miro a los hombres como paisajes de otro mundo” (“I look at men as landscapes from another world”) and “el…teatro ardiente de la vida en mi torno”(the…fiery theater of life around me”). The song is also portraying the feelings evoked by the lines: “ya no soy vivo…¡las anclas que me arrancaron de la tierra mía!” (I am no longer alive…the anchors that ripped me off my land!).

I use in this song three E-Bows that are placed on the strings of the piano and produce a sustained sound. This for me represents “another world,” which is paired with chords that move by thirds in the piano to create polytonality. The motion by thirds comes from the previous song in the cycle. Polytonality portrays the presence of two worlds as well as the sound of the E-Bows against the sound of the piano, that is the sound of the piano strings versus the sound of the piano keys. The music that portrays “the…fiery theater of life around me” is faster and charged with more angular sounds. This section ends in a sort of operatic fashion, when the singer sings: “mis pedazos palpo” (“I can feel my pieces” (as in pieces of his flesh), which is also the climax of the music.

The song ends with the return of the E-Bow sound. In this section, three E-Bows are used to form a chorale texture. The singer sings a lament over the chorale and the clarinet joins the chord progression by playing trills on the notes that change from chord to chord. The ending is a surprise element meant to communicate heaviness and shock. 

- Ivette Herryman Rodríguez

Text (José Julián Martí Pérez):

DE OTRO MUNDO

En los ojos llevo un dolor

Las campanas, el sol, el cielo claro
me llenan de tristeza, y en los ojos
llevo un dolor que el verso compasivo mira,
un rebelde dolor que el verso rompe
¡y es, oh mar, la gaviota pasajera
que rumbo a Cuba va sobre tus olas!

Un reflejo mío

Vino a verme un amigo, y a mi mismo
me preguntó por mi; ya en mi no queda
más que un reflejo mío, como guarda
la sal del mar la concha de la orilla.
Cáscara soy de mi, que en tierra ajena
gira, a la voluntad del viento huraño,
vacía, sin fruta, desgarrada, rota.

Paisajes de otro mundo

Miro a los hombres como montes; miro
como paisajes de otro mundo, el bravo
codear, el mugir, el teatro ardiente
de la vida en mi torno: ni un gusano
es ya más infeliz: ¡suyo es el aire,
y el lodo en que muere es suyo!
Siento la coz de los caballos, siento his!
las ruedas de los carros; mis pedazos
palpo: ya no soy vivo: ¡ni lo era
cuando el barco fatal levó las anclas
que me arrancaron de la tierra mía!

TRANSLATION:  FROM ANOTHER WORLD

I. In My Eyes I Carry Pain

The bells, the sun, the clear sky
fill me with sadness, and in my eyes
I carry a pain that the compassionate
verse looks at, a rebel pain that the 
verse breaks and it is, oh sea, the
passing seagull that heading to Cuba 
goes on your waves! 

II. A Reflection of Me

A friend came to see me, and myself
he asked about me: there is no longer
in me more than a reflection of me,
how it keeps the salt of the sea the
shell of the shore. I am a shell of me,
that in a foreign land turns, at the
will of the sullen wind, empty,
no fruit, torn, broken.

III. Landscapes From Another World

I look at men as mountains; I look
like landscapes from another world
the brave elbow, the moo, the fiery
theater of life around me: not a worm
is already more unhappy: his is the 
air, and the mud in which he dies is
I feel the kick of horses, I feel
chariot wheels; my pieces I can feel:
I am no longer alive: nor was I
when the fatal ship lifted the anchors
that ripped me off my land!

all we are given we cannot hold
Music by David Biedenbender
Poetry by Robert Fanning

all we are given we cannot hold was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University and is dedicated to and written for my friends in the Haven Trio––Lindsay Kesselman, Midori Koga, and Kimberly Luevano. The songs are settings of poetry by my friend Robert Fanning, selected from three of his incredible collections of work: Our Sudden Museum, The Seed Thieves, and the forthcoming All we are given we cannot hold. All of the poems connect in some way to the idea of the fleeting––the ephemeral––often capturing some small, seemingly ordinary moment, and finding a profundity and beauty within it. These poems remind me of advice once given to me by a friend. We were talking about how my children often snuggle up and cuddle with me, and she was reflecting on how her grown child no longer does that when she said, “cherish those moments. They are so special and beautiful, because you won’t realize until later that it was the last time that they did that seemingly small thing.” There are so many moments in life like this, and my hope with this piece is to reflect on their poignant beauty in an attempt to live in them more fully. (David Biedenbender)

TEXT (Robert Fanning):

1. The Darkness, Literal and Figurative
—for Gabriel and Magdalena

Neither should frighten you, but both will.
Tonight it’s the literal darkness, figuratively:
your day’s stuffed animals now poised
shadows ready to leap and devour you.
Now I’m here with you,
your living father, literally, arms around you,
to say: As your known shapes take misshapen forms,
know: everything you can’t fully see
suggests more than it is.
Later, it’ll be the figurative dark, literally:
the stuffed shadows of your dazed anima poised

now ready to leap and devour your loves.
Later, I’ll be with you here,
your dead father, figuratively, arms around you,
to say: As your unknown misshapen shapes take form,
know: Everything you can’t see fully
suggests more than it is.
Neither should frighten you, but both will.

(from Our Sudden Museum)

2. One and a Half Miles Away from Dying

the people in this car, unaware
their sacred closing moments are here,
exhaust their last travel game.
In the back seat the girl hums,

braiding her sister's black hair.
The boy traces his name in breath
on the back window, each slow letter
squeaking the chilled glass, making his mother

shiver. Like a fish trapped in thin pond
ice, gasping, she stares into the car
through the visor vanity mirror.
Her lips glisten under the lipstick wand.

Yawning, the driver's face is caught wide open
in passing headlight amber, his left hand
draped over the wheel at the wrist.
His other hand tries to retrieve the lost

voice of The Late World News reporter,
her words garbled by cloudbursts
shattering over the flat horizon, east.
Shutting the radio off, he tries to lure

his kids to sing one they know by heart.
He turns the rearview mirror until it
holds their three faces. Half in shadow,
placid, they peer at him below,

his cheeks splashed green by dashboard light.
The clock's last digit clicks one more minute.
Beyond the blind curve, a truck's hulk
of silver screeches over the median wall.

An oil tanker, sparks raging, airborne,
careens toward this side of the freeway
—meteor tail of flame, like a missile shot
astray. Back in the car, before the turn,

it is quiet. The people smile
doing last minute things:
one scratching an ankle,
one blinking,
one taking a breath preparing to sing.

(from The Seed Thieves)

3. Watching My Daughter through the One Way Mirror of a Preschool Observation Room

Maggie's finishing a portrait
of our family, gluing googly eyes
onto a stately stick figure

I hope is me. Now she doesn't know
who to play with, as other kids,
posie-pocketed, all
fall down. She wears my face
superimposed. I almost tap
the glass, point her toward

the boy with yellow trucks.
Lost, she stares out the classroom window
toward snow-humped pines

beyond the playground.
When I'm dead, I hope there'll be a thin pane
such as this between us. I'll stand forever

out in the dark to watch my grown children
move through their bright rooms.
Maybe just once they'll cup

their hands against the glass, caught
by some flicker or glint,
a slant of light touching their faces.

(from Our Sudden Museum)

4. The Thorn Birds  
—for my mother

“...Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpestspine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.... Or so says the legend.” —(Wikipedia, Gospel of Thomas, Ch. 9)

Through the nettles of casual chatter
the question flutters in again.
For the fourth time this week, you ask
what it was—the title of that novel
you’ve read so many times.
The one you loved so much you once
framed its cover and hung it on your wall.
This morning, I open a window of time,
hoping it will help: let’s give it a minute—
let’s see if it comes to you. You glance up,
fingertip to your lips—the way I imagine
you might have as a girl, given a problem
to solve. Everything goes, you’d said
only yesterday of the teeth, the ears,
the eyes, before the white-coated
ophthalmologist swooped in to stick
a needle into both of your irises.
Now you squint into the ink black
vines of yet another thickening dark
toward the sting of what escapes you.
The way you’ve pressed your heart—
your whole life—toward the face of God
and love: readying to sing its missing name.

(from All We Are Given We Cannot Hold)

5. Model Nation
—for Gabriel

As you speak, new worlds rise in your eyes.
A voice within your voice—do you hear it, too?—
could fill a whole sea with whale song. It sings
fathom and league, sings launch and conquer.
It is ocean wide now, this good force of your going.
Yet still, my heart fumbles to fasten some small rope
around the dock—and so love is—wishes for a way
to keep us here. Too late. That little boat you were,
giggling in the tub as I blew bubbles, is oceans away.
Sailboat, tugboat, yacht, steamer, freighter,
I've been watching from the dock and hear already
the growing ache and groan of giant chains clanking
an iron hull, the long horn of adulthood calling you
with its sweeping wall of mist and fog.
When you look back and see me wave, may I be
the ocean's shoulders ever rolling beneath you.
Please—know me not as a country fading
from view, but as one who carried with love
the great world you now carry in you.

(from All We Are Given We Cannot Hold)

6. Body of Work

Because we want it brighter. Because we want our own beauty bared
before us. Because we've lived long enough with the room's
deep forest print, we take to the wall. Faces masked,

we begin the task of peeling off the torn, dog-eared green, opening
the story of our house. Years bleed up from beneath the heat
of steam: solids, stripes, prints and florals unfurling

as we score and scrape—decades of blues and deep reds, of pastels
and pale yellows, a spectrum of dust-wet flesh sloughed
off, pages falling in strips and flakes at our feet.

It's more than a century of layers with their pentimento stains of breath
and voices before we reach bone, breaking through
plaster holes we patch later, before, at last,

the last wet swaths of our chosen painted shade dry; we finish
in the day's fading gold. This is the work of house
and body. Every decorous self a patchwork

of seams and glue, a mashup of lives to make one. Each accretion
of wound and scab a making and unmaking, the flesh
a roll of film, a wall of swatches in the shifting

fashions of light. How I've peeled back year into year, hoping to see
the face of the child I was, the one breathing just beyond
this last brittle layer of blue, whose shadow

blossomed into this life, this room.
Who blooms through his million lids of sleep, his chorus
of bruise and roses. Who sings and sings: Be true, be true.

(from All We Are Given We Cannot Hold)

7. Cuttings  

On the porch at dawn I watch
my childrens' commingled curls
wander toward my feet,

tumbleweeds in a coming storm's
unsettled air. Last evening they each
stood here wearing a black plastic bag,

their heads poked through the ripped
neck hole, as my wife snipped at bangs,
her trimmings making scrunched noses itch.

I should get the broom to whisk these tufts
into a bag—she likes to keep their hair.
But I watch them drift instead, these

little nests of them we left and cannot bear.
The wind will take what we forget
to sweep. And cannot keep.

(from Our Sudden Museum)

BIOGRAPHY: 

Established solo artists soprano Lindsay Kesselman, clarinetist Kimberly Cole Luevano, and pianist Midori Koga joined as the Haven Trio in 2011 around performances of Abbie Betinis’ hauntingly beautiful song cycle Nattsanger. Haven released its first album, Bright Angel, (Fleur de Son, Ltd.) in 2013 to critical acclaim: “…amazingly performed works…performances are exquisite as is their ensemble chemistry.” (Sequenza 21) 

Now in its 13th season, Haven has commissioned a compelling body of repertoire from its extended family of composers. Their recordings: all we are given we cannot hold (Blue Griffin, 2023), Twinge (Blue Griffin, 2019), Atonement (Fleur de Son, 2015), and Bright Angel (Fleur de Son, 2013) can be found on all streaming platforms. Haven believes in commissioning people, not pieces of music, and enjoys ongoing relationships with composers such as Abbie Betinis, David Biedenbender, Evan Chambers, Roshanne Etezady, Lee Kesselman, Amy Beth Kirsten, Gilda Lyons, Kieren MacMillan, Jon Magnussen and Ivette Herryman Rodriguez. 

Haven feels fortunate to have received support from numerous granting organizations in support of new music and is the recipient of a Barlow Endowment Commissioning Grant (2021), Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant (2021 and 2015), Ontario Arts Council Grant (2016) and others. 

Recent and upcoming performances include: premieres of all we are given we cannot hold by David Biedenbender and poet Robert Fanning, DE OTRO MUNDO by Ivette Herryman Rodriguez, Hardwired for Optimism by Roshanne Etezady and poet Carolyn Petit Pinet, as well as premieres of new arrangements of David Biedenbender’s Shell and Wing and Amy Beth Kirsten’s to my own heart). They were featured in performances with Chamber Music International and the Fine Arts Chamber Players in Dallas, TX, and also in a residency with the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto. 

Kim, Lindsay and Midori are all passionate teachers and actively seek out opportunities to work with student performers and composers. Haven has recently engaged in performing/teaching residencies at Michigan State University, the Hartt School, University of Texas – San Antonio, Sam Houston State University, Emory and Henry University, Abilene Christian University, St. Mary of the Woods College,College of DuPage and as an Ensemble-in-Residence at the Connecticut Summerfest in June 2022 (and also upcoming in June 2024). 

Whether in a living room, an art gallery, a school, or a concert hall, Haven harnesses the power of vulnerability…inviting its audiences into an intimate and personal experience of contemporary music. Through their composers, they aim to create artistic experiences which allow audiences to feel welcomed, included, and connected to one another through poetry and musical storytelling.

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

As part of the Faculty’s commitment to improving Indigenous inclusion, we call upon all members of our community to start/continue their personal journeys towards understanding and acknowledging Indigenous peoples’ histories, truths and cultures. Visit indigenous.utoronto.ca to learn more.

The Thursdays at Noon series is made possible in part by the Jay Telfer Forum Endowment Fund.