Ciudades del Porvenir
For Soprano and Piano
12 minutes
Commissioned by Liza Stepanova and Laura Strickling.
Premiered by Laura Strickling (soprano) and Liza Stepanova (piano) at Next Stage in Putney, Vermont as part of the Yellow Barn Festival Artists Residency.
Further performances at the University of Georgia in April 2017. Other performances include the Source Song Festival in Minneapolis, MN in August 2017.
Program Notes:
The song cycle Ciudades del Porvenir (Cities from a Future to Come) consists of a pair of settings of the poetry by the young Mexican poet Yaxkin Melchy. I was attracted to his whimsical, almost surrealistic writings. I could sense that underneath the often sharp contrasts on the surface, there was a real human and moving quality to his poetry. The two songs work as kinds of foils to one another with El Corazón Humano (The Human Heart) being the louder, darker sibling to the more quiet and expansive Ciudades del Porvenir (Cities from a Future to Come).
Laura Strickling, Soprano
Liza Stepanova, Piano