Poetry-Inspired Music project
About the project
It started as an exercise for using my virtual-orchestra software, EastWest Quantum Leap Symphony Orchestra. Peter Alexander of Alexander University was beta-testing course material on orchestration, which suggested poems as a starting point for composing solos for various instruments. I wrote these solos and used my software to mock up demos of the pieces. I liked the process and the result so much that I kept looking for more poems. I am developing quite a library of pieces and plan to expand the collection to include all instruments. If I can find suitable groups of poems, I'd like to create some solo and duo suites too.
Sometimes the solo depicts the evolution of the whole poem, sometimes it picks up an idea or two and rhapsodizes on it, and sometimes the musical idea comes from a sound image that emerges from single line. The two pieces based on "The Mirror of Diana" come are based on two separate lines from that poem. The resulting music of each is very different.
Poetry in concert The poetry gives the audience a hook for listening to the music. In concert, I recommend having a good, dramatic speaker read the poem, followed by the music. Most of the poems take only a minute or two to read. Audiences has been very complimentary and receptive when I've presented the music this way. And at least one non-poetry-reading musician commented to me that it was a nice, digestible dose of poetry too.
"For a poetry novice, it was a good amount of poems." -- audience member (paraphased)
The set of poetry-inspired music so far
Check out the Spindrift Catalog pages, listed below, to look at and hear the music in the Poetry-Inspired Music project. For most of the solos, you'll find MP3 demos created with virtual instruments.
Solos |
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High Flight for flute Beyond the Storm for oboe Summer Into Winter for clarinet Unabashed Promotion & Sunrise on the Hills for horn
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Duos |
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float into the quiet skies &
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Other solos that aren't directly based on poems |
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Communing with Birds for flute Colored Leaves for horn Soliloquy for cello
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Poetry-Inspired Music in concert
Read press releases for concerts that included poetry-inspired solos: