Hila Plitmann, soprano

Donor Acknowledgement

This program is made possible by the Joyce S. and Robert U. Nelson Fund. Robert Uriel Nelson was a revered musicologist and music professor at UCLA, who, together with his wife, established a generous endowment for the university to make programs like this possible.

Program Notes

Nursery Rhymes was written recently for the magnificent Hila Plitmann. The texts are traditional nursery rhymes that have been repeated and re-configured. Changing musical treatments of the same texts allow the singing actor to take on different characters and create a kind of surrealistic narrative of fleeting dramatic moments. Double and triple entendres abound.

– Peter Golub

Things I used to say…

“If I ever lose you

I hope I see you in a stranger’s eyes”

No matter if they’re brown or blue

Every person I see

Looks

Like

You

“If I ever lose you

I hope I hear your whispers

as it begins to rain”

My hair was matted and frizzied

So why did you look at me

Like a galaxy in your gaze

I was the universe

How can you hold the whole world

And let go

So

Easily

“If I ever lose you

I hope I feel your warmth in the sunbeams

that fall across the kitchen table”

A pack of cigarettes unopened

A button off your jacket, no thread

Orange juice never finished

A grocery list too expensive

You exist In the things no longer mundane

No longer painless

after you

“If I ever lose you,

I hope you haunt my memories

Like the incense of earth

haunts the forest after a storm”

Mud that’s too hard to cradle In your palms

Ripping grass from the top of the downy ground

And it hurts hurts hurts

but if I did not feel pain

I’d have truly forgotten

all the venom you spoke into my veins

And beautiful nothings that didn’t mean anything

You showed me

I have to hurt to be in love

so your love was always

Easy

For

Me

~ Meghan McGorry (b. 2000)

The Answer by Sara Teasdale

When I go back to earth

And all my joyous body

Puts off the red and white

That once had been so proud,

If men should pass above

With false and feeble pity,

My dust will find a voice

To answer them aloud:

“Be still, I am content,

Take back your poor compassion—

Joy was a flame in me

Too steady to destroy.

Lithe as a bending reed

Loving the storm that sways her—

I found more joy in sorrow

Than you could find in joy.”

Sara Teasdale published “The Answer” in October 1915 as the last of three poems, collectively (and irresistibly to a composer) titled “Songs.” It is a meditation on mortality, gratitude, and strength in the face of suffering. To my mind, it recalls the writings of the stoics; first and foremost is their mantra “memento mori,” or “remember you will die.” Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations: “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts,” and “It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live.” These are ideas that are very close to me, and Teasdale’s expression of them is dyed with exquisite colors, made all the more bittersweet by her decision to take her own life eighteen years after this poem’s publication. My adaptation attempts to avoid the overtly pessimistic – I feel strongly that an artist’s work should not be colored by the circumstances of their passing. This work, and so much of her poetry, appears to me to contain the antipode to such a tragic choice – the knowledge that it is a privilege and an honor to experience such powerful feeling even when it is found in suffering, and that our final refuge will find us in its own time.

– Matt Smith

In the Armenian Christian liturgical tradition, death is just a period of rest, and the dead are still counted as members of the church.  As such, families can request special requiem prayers on the anniversary of the death of their loved ones.  The hymn, Ի Վերին Երուսաղէմ, is the hallmark of these requiem prayers.  It is a reminder that life is transient, but is also a symbol of hope because, for Armenian Christians, so is death.

– Vasken Ohanian

Pierrot by Wallace Stevens

I lie dreaming ‘neath the moon,

You lie dreaming under ground;

I lie singing while I dream,

You lie dreaming of the sound.

Soon I shall lie dreaming too,

Close beside you where you are —

Moon! Behold me while I sing,

Then, behold our empty star.

Pierrot epitomizes what it means to yearn for the unreachable. Here, however, his traditional moonstruck obsession is replaced by a very real, mortal love, which he can only dream to be reunited with. This sudden brave plea to the moon gives way to a resigned acceptance as one watches Pierrot finally come to terms with his existence in solitude, accompanied only by the moon. In his hope, he finds peace — for as his hope and despair hold hands, he becomes, for once, his own solace.

– Celina Anna Kintscher

“Odysseus! Come here! You are well-known

from many stories! Glory of the Greeks!

Now stop your ship and listen to our voices.

All those who pass this way hear honeyed song,

poured from our mouths. The music brings them joy,

and they go on their way with greater knowledge, [Odysseus]

since we know everything the Greeks and Trojans

suffered in Troy, by gods’ will; and we know

whatever happens anywhere on earth.

[Odysseus. Come here!]”

Translated by Emily Wilson, From Homer’s Odyssey, Book 12

The Odyssey has one of the first examples of a meta-song. In ancient Greece, epic poems were memorized and sung in an improvisatory manner. Within Homer’s Odyssey, there are embedded meta-narratives in the form of song-within-a-song.

In Ancient Greek mythology, sirens were described as half-woman/ half-bird creatures with beautiful voices that magically lure sailors to their destruction. While sailing across the islands of Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus convinces his men to stuff their ears with wax and tie him to the mast of his ship, so he can hear the sirens’ beautiful song, without risking death.

I chose an English translation by Emily Wilson, who skillfully arranged the epic poem from a Greek hexameter to an English iambic pentameter, thus maintaining a cohesive poetic meter.

– Andreas Apostolou

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Excerpt) by T. S. Eliot

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s renowned poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ this composition explores themes of self-reflection, existential questioning, and the intricate facets of the human experience. By commencing with the soprano’s voice at its highest register, the music captures the inner turmoil and introspection portrayed in Eliot’s words.

– SiHyun Uhm

Chanson d’Automne (1866)

Les sanglots longs

Des violons

De l’automne

Blessent mon coeur

D’une langueur

Monotone.

Tout suffocant

Et blême, quand

Sonne l’heure,

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

Et je pleure;

Et je m’en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m’emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

Feuille morte.

– Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

Autumn’s Song (1866)

When a sighing begins

In the violins

Of the autumn-song

My heart is drowned

In the slow sound

Languorous and long.

Pale as with pain

Breath fails me, when

The Hours toll deep,

My thoughts recover

the days that are over

And I weep;

And I go

Where the winds know

Broken and brief

To, and fro,

As the winds blow

A dead leaf.

– Translation by Arthur Symons (1865-1945)

Year after year, I find myself writing at least one melancholy piece during these autumn months. The familiar images of the falling leaves, the shortening days, the gray skies, and the chilling winds provoke within me deep contemplation, not infrequently dotted with sadness and solitude. I began October jotting down the opening notes of this piece, and then found a poem that matched the (to my ears) gloomy and French quality of the music. Verlaine’s words capture those loneliest of autumn moments, and I greatly enjoyed setting his poetry in a style reminiscent of his musical contemporaries.

– Yoni Fogelman

Stars by Joaquin Lichtle

See, I am yours

And you are mine

Like the stars

The Stars
See me as I am
Look beyond desire

Above our arrogance

My stabbing
Blind judgment, darkness

Apart from your true heart

Don’t be fooled

Arrogance!

Look beyond
Look to the stars

Stars

Stars

Stars

See, I am yours
And you are mine
Not a possession but,

Like gravity
We are drawn
Both orbits fully aligned

Together like the stars

Like the stars
Pervaded by light
Filled with love we grasp

Darkness can’t abide

For within
Our hearts I find,
We are like the stars

Stars

Stars is a piece that revolves around the theme of love and the quest to break away from blinding beliefs. As I started writing this work, the opposing themes inspired me to write the text myself. It was a transformative process as it reminded me of the essence all humans are capable of experiencing: true, unconditional love.

– Joaquin Lichtle

Immortality (Do Not Stand By My Grave and Weep) by Clare Harner

Do not stand
By my grave, and weep,

I am not there,

I do not sleep—

I am the thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints in snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning’s hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the day transcending night.

Do not stand
By my grave, and cry–

I am not there,

I did not die.

This poem was first introduced to me by a writer friend, and it spoke to me so deeply in that moment that I could not stop thinking about it. It connected to me back to my first encounter with Buddhist philosophy, specifically the concept of interbeing, which originates from the writing of Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. He writes,

About thirty years ago I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.

Hanh’s writing and interbeing profoundly changed my perspective and way of being in the world and has remained an important element of my life. Harner’s poem seems to stem from a similar perspective; I found it incredibly inspiring and hope to bring some of these ideals to life in the music.

– Madeline Barrett

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

In January of this year, 2023, we lost Charles “Chas” Wetherbee too early to cancer. A concert violinist, professor, husband, and father of three, Chas left a lasting impact on his loved ones, colleagues, and students, as a musician and as a person. I got to know Chas briefly during our time together in Siena, Italy at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in the Summer of 2022. Chas and his close-knit group, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, spent time with me and nine other composition students premiering new works abroad. I fondly remember enjoying the quartet’s stunning performances and their genuine love for each other as friends, especially in our final dinner together. Even after Chas had discovered his cancer had come back, he refused to put down his violin and stop sharing his music and love with the world.

After Italy, Chas and I kept in touch via email, and he and his quartet extended to me the generosity of recording another movement of my string quartet. I had no idea these months would be Chas’s final months of playing his violin. We exchanged emails, making adjustments to the composition, as Chas shared his wisdom with me beyond the summer excursion to Italy. Upon my final submission of comments to Chas, he replied, “all will be as you wish.”

Upon the eve of Chas’s passing, I discovered his GoFundMe page, flooded with thousands of donations and notes about his kindness, compassion, love, musicianship, friendship, and the mark he left as a person. Chas, throughout his whole life, gave so much to the world. Of all the notes, I would like to share this quote from his wife Karina:

“…Chas’s final words were about birds, especially birds of prey and wild fowl, “high-flyers”, as he called them… so, now, I take heart when I see a beautiful creature flying overhead; I give a small wave and a nod of acknowledgement, as I feel the warmth of the love that Chas left. I hope you feel it too. He put it out into the world for all to share.”

Dedicated in loving memory of Charles “Chas” Wetherbee With special thanks and gratitude to Hilá Plitmann Poetry from “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

– Austin Ali