3 songs for voice & piano [4’]; words Eleni Zisimatos; 2024.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Premiere: Alex Samaras, baritone, with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024 

voice & piano [2’]; words Corrado Paina; 2024.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Premiere: Rebecca Cuddy, mezzo-soprano with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024 

voice & piano [2’]; words Keith Garebian; 2024.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Premiere: Rebecca Cuddy, mezzo-soprano with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024 

voice & piano [2’]; words Antonia Facciponte; 2024.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke with the assistance of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Premiere: Rebecca Cuddy, mezzo-soprano with pianist Helen Becqué, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto, May 23, 2024 

mezzo-soprano & piano [4’]; words Armand Garnet Ruffo; 2023.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke
Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023.

A Wise Man Once Told Me

for Wilfred Peltier

by Armand Garnet Ruffo, Treaty# (Wolsak & Wyn)

When the knock comes

to your door

you will not be there to answer it.

We have been undressing too long

it is time

to put our clothes back on.

You take the water that is still

and the water that flows

and all the things in the water

bring them back here

within you

where they belong.

You take the land

and the rocks, and the trees

and all those animals

and the insects

who live in those forests –

you bring all that back too

inside of you.

Then you take the birds

the air

the clouds

the stars, the sky

and the whole universe

that too belongs

inside of you.

And then we take all

of the people in the world

and every language

in the world

and bring that too back

inside of you

where it rightfully belongs.

When you have done that

you will be fully clothed.

And each foot will know

exactly

where to fall

and you cannot make a mistake.

When the knock comes

to your door

you will be there

to answer it.

mezzo-soprano & piano [6’]; words George Elliott Clarke; 2023.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke
Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023.

Austin C. Clarke’s “When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks” (1971): Subtext

I.

Navigating the archipelago of rainbow lips

and neon-lustrous nylons,

plus islands of pepper in the Caesar,

the reefs of lime in the Cuba libre,

and dodging the chiseled, Aztec, bas-relief

of Cruelty ebon Shebas profile—

their chatter always as indecipherable

as Papal Latin

swished suave I into the Pilot Tavern—

me garbed as for Tiger’s Coconut Grove

(at Kensington Market), but now

stepping off Bloor into Yorkville

(5^th Avenue gone Greenwich Village),

under an August moon as lemony

as that unmoored by the untaught Rousseau—

but projecting wishes as dreamy

as the philosophy of the other Rousseau—

came this black-ink scribe to escape

the chop-chop guillotines of cops’ mouths,

the manacles of critics’ eyeglasses,

the dismembering megaphones

of Dixieland Kitsch jazz

(the engrained dirt in Wonder-white-Bread,

ad-jingle-crammed, T.O. ears),

and the unspoiled fists of Black Panther imports,

kept tight-leashed by Brampton Billy’s thugs—

and so boogied down I to chant Rastafarian,

Ah, frumoasă! Frumoasă!—

Ah, beautiful! Beautiful!—

because the Pilot Tavern is Toronto’s Parthenon

(at least for tonight),

and the silk patina of my Bombay Sapphire

gin martini (with three olives),

hid from Inhibition,

the subversive Geometry of sable breasts

or ladies’ angular, flexible legs,

one black woman’s stretched out leg

lecherous gainst mine,

under a table sized to fit only two glasses,

so that the poetry of my Negroni cocktail

outshouted and outvoted

all that short-pants, childish, Anglican theology,

all that incense that ferries the aroma

of young corpses

or of kiddies cored and/or buggered in the warrens of His and Her Majesties’ churches…

— George Elliott Clarke

mezzo-soprano & piano [5’]; words Yeshim Ternar; 2023.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke
Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023.

From The Book and the Veil: Escape from an Istanbul Harem, by Yeshim Ternar (Montréal: Véhicule Press, 1994)

VII.

Now, I, Yeshim, who’s fled every office chaise,

From East to West, have sauntered East many times:

A Turkish-born writer, Montréalaise,

I hear, in Mont-Royal, Istanbul’s chimes,

And recall instantly that Turks love the buttercup,

Narcissus, dandelions, and camomile

All sprouting wildly in Istanbul, all non-stop,

All along the Bosphorus, whose waters rile

Houses lizarding hazardous banks, so mad floods

Wash out foundations.  But the fixed standard

Of Beauty in Istanbul is unpredictable moods:

Of water, of women.  And so Love meanders….

I think of Zeyneb, her eyes sleepy but not dull.

She tells of opium pills that helped mothers

And wives pull through Ramadan, treat it as a lull,

Swallowing drugs sold in thin-gold covers;

Hallowing pills with varying thicknesses 

Of gold coating, so that ladies could float above

All cares for husbands, lovers, businesses,

And even look down upon—frown upon—Love.

mezzo-soprano & piano [3’]; words Giovanna Riccio; 2023.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke
Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023.

Barbie Sounds Out

Giovanna Riccio from Plastic’s Republic

1

babes play

babes say ba ba Ba rrr b e

be a ba be be be a bo db y

be a bar bar Bar bie

i.e. bare ly a bod y be

be no body

2

Barbie breast bar barbarian nipples

nipples be a no-no

ra-ra- ra no bra no brainer

know no nipples on breasts

now know breasts bear no nipples,

know how busty Barbie be no B-cup cupcake

Barbie bar-hops big-breasted

in bed or bar nipple less

nip nip nipples? yes! pin-up Barbie no less

3

barring the BRRR of barbed air-waves

Barbie babble in ear

her barbed scat on air

air on a B string

airheads put on airs

hair-heads rarely hear

how barbarian girls reared on hair play

buy Barbie babble

be nobody nobody

buy Barbie and be

rabbi Barbie or A-rab Barbie

or Barbara-Ann bomb, bomb, bomb

bomb, bombing Iran

4

grab Barbie by the waist

no way

Barbie brags a barely-there waist

waist-away be done

waste-away be none

mezzo-soprano & piano [3’]; words Mansour Noorbakhsh; 2023.

Commissioner: George Elliott Clarke
Premiere: Laura Swankey and Juliet Palmer, The Canadian Music Centre, December 15, 2023.

Oh, Rain!
Mansour Noorbakhsh from Vital Signs

Oh, Rain!
I would continue my rain dance in the rain.
I would pray within my prayer.
I would wish within my wishes.
I would stop running in zigzags.
I would drop and rise,
and rise and drop.
I wish I could live as a shared wish.
I wish I could share my wishes.
I would see with my lips.
I would speak with my eyes.
I would fall as a raindrop
and burn to the end as a burned brand.
I would breathe the love
I would breathe the love…
breathe the love…

I was looking at You, Woman—silently,
while you were hugging the girl quietly.
Did phoenix cry thus?

baritone & piano [4’]; words Richard Sanger, 2021.

Performers: Alex Samaras and Gregory Oh
Video: Juliet Palmer

Skating with Jane
(on Grenadier Pond)

by Richard Sanger

Skates and toddlers piled in
with hockey stick,
we galumph sled down slope
to see how thick
the ice is, take a step
and test our weight.
Our boys can hardly walk,
let alone skate,
but the pond is a dare
we can’t resist,
an equation we’ll prove
only like this:
black, hard, smooth as mica.
You lace up fast
and race off to carve scratch
after white scratch
in this high-gloss tabletop.
I undo boots,
buckle up kiddie skates,
rearrange toques,
mitts, try to warm with words
their frozen hands,
then send them out onto
the bright expanse
we’ve got all to ourselves—
this adventure
that stretches clear to Queen,
touched here and there
with wisps and drifts of snow
the wind pushes
against their cheeks, across
the lake’s dark surface,
the whole Breughelesque scene—
which you skate back
towards me on… And then—
then there’s a crack
like a rifle going off,
an almighty PING
—sound of sheet metal
caught in the wind—
that ricochets around,
reverberates
over the lake and hums
beneath our blades.
You stopped; they tottered on.
I can’t forget
your eyes exploding wide,
sure this was it,
the ice that held, that held,
the smile that spread—
no, broke across your face:
Holy shit, you said. Holy shit.

From Dark Woods (Biblioasis, 2018)

mezzo-soprano & piano [4’]; words Wilhelm Müller, trans Palmer; 2006, arranged 2010.

Wilhelm Müller’s poem Gefrorne Tränen is probably best known in its setting by Schubert in Winterreise from 1827. I first wove this new version into the interdisciplinary performance work, Flotsam & Jetsam, inspired by my grandmother who played piano for the silent movies (and loved to play Schubert). Later it surfaced in the song cycle Province of Impossible in a new arrangement for voice and shamisen. This is the recording featured here.

Voice: Christine Duncan

Shamisen: Aki Takhashi

Recording: CBC Live at Sound Symposium, 2010

Frozen tears are falling from my cheeks,

But I don’t even notice I’ve been crying.

I’ve been crying.

Oh tears, my tears,

Are you so lukewarm

That you freeze into ice

Like cool morning dew?

As if to melt the ice of the whole winter.

Oh tears, my tears.

mezzo-soprano & piano [10’]; words Simin Behbahani; 2017, arranged 2023.

Commissioned by Instruments of Happiness & funded by the Toronto Arts Council
Arranged for piano and voice, 2023
Poem: Simin Behbahani سیمین خلیلی
Original English translation: Farzaneh Milani & Kaveh Safa (A Cup of Sin, Syracuse 1999)
Farsi transliteration, additional translation assistance & adaptation: Siavash Shabanpour & Behnaz Siahpustan

Troubled by the song of a bird at night, the narrator imagines it brings a coded message from the battlefield. Who will listen? At the heart of the song Behbahani alludes to the 13th century Persian poet Sa’adi Shirazi’s famous poem Bani Adam. “We are all members of the same body” — if one part suffers, so do we all. Behbahani’s translator Farzaneh Milani, described her as “the elegant voice of dissent, of conscience, of nonviolence, of refusal to be ideological”. Her poetry needs to be heard now more than ever. Conflict continues in Syria and the ongoing exodus of refugees elicits both generosity and suspicion amongst those outside the region. Meanwhile, in North America and Europe, totalitarian ideologues feed on the fears and misunderstandings of the disenfranchised. In my setting of Morse, the singer switches between English and Farsi, giving the listener access to the original rhythms and sonic imprint of the lyrics. A special thanks to Siavash Shabanpour and Behnaz Siahpustan for their insights and for guiding me through the text in Farsi.

Khat nuq ti nuq ti nuq ti vo khat…
Dash, dot, dot, dot, dash—

a song-bird sings a song full of signs
from the branches of an elm tree.

Dar eltihā be kashf u talab
Dar emtadāde vashat u shab

As the night and the terror spread,
My mind searches for a message
in every silence between sounds,
in every song.

Shāyad zi marz ātashe khūn
Shāyad zi dashte jange janūn

Perhaps from some battle field,
from the borders of madness, fire, and blood,
a bird with a tired heart has brought a message
from a man with a tired body.

Tīghīst hūye nāleya ū
Her cries are like daggers, sadness chokes her,
and blood drips from her sighs.
Khun mīchikad zi nāle furū.

Nāladqe khālqe fitne talab
Dar khūn kishandish az che sabab
Anjā qi bazme sāze sibā
Gusdarde farshī az chamanī

They moan, they complain
about bloodthirsty warmongers
soaking the green carpet Spring has brought
With so much blood

blood khūn, blood khūn blood!

Hey! You!
Lovers of God’s Paradise!

Hey you!
Hey! This is Paradise!

Ay āshiqe beheshte khudā!
Ī nak behesht khīzubiā!

Harjāke nutfe baste gulī
Harjāke ruste yāsamanī

where flowers blossom
and Jasmines bloom.

Hey! Ay āz behesht gufte khabar!
Hey! You, emissaries of heaven,
why create hell with your fire,
change homes and lives to smoke?

Bāni Adam āzāyeyek digarand.
Keh dar āfarinesh ze yek guharand.
“We are all of the same essence,
members of the same body,”
said that world-weary wise man.

Bā mādarān halā! chekunat
Ashke chikīde rā chekunat
How can he face the mothers
and their flood of tears,
the torturer with the heart of iron
who fills mouths with lead
in the dead of night?

Ashke chikīde, khūne chikīde
Tears drip, blood drips

Ay murghake tarānesarā!
Oh, songbird, I have heard your coded song

something must be done,
but by someone with her hand unbound,
not like mine, tied behind my back.

Kāri valī besār naravad
Bā dastbaste hamcho manī

Khat nuq ti nuq ti nuq ti vo khat…
Dash, dot, dot, dot, dash—

Harfīst gīramash bi ghalat —
Zīnshe’ero zan tarāne cherā

I imagine it’s a message.
I imagine a message.

But silence, you won’t break
with this poem or that song.

mezzo-soprano & piano [2’]; words Federico Garcia Lorca; 2015.

Commissioner: Soundstreams Canada
Premiere: Krisztina Szabo & Stephanie Chua, The Gardiner Museum, Toronto, September 18, 2015.
Text: Federico Garcia Lorca

Program note:

How to set a portion of the Ghazal for a Dead Child by Garcia Lorca without hearing echoes of George Crumb’s version? I purposefully didn’t refresh my memory of this vocal classic, focussing instead on the first stanza of the poem, interpreting it as a quietly obsessive rumination on loss. The singer and pianist are both called upon to step outside their comfort zone through body percussion and vocalization. In response to the lyrical devastation of the poem, I chose to work with numerical patterns based on syllabic and visual structures of the text. The result is an emotionally restrained, simple, stripped down setting.

Todas las tardes el agua se sienta a conversar con sus amigos
Every afternoon the water sits down to talk things over with its friends