Milkweed is complete and I am in the process of some very last minor editing and mixing. I feel grateful for the work to have been selected for the Nature Without Borders International Film Festival, and hope to share more widely very soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this small excerpt:
This summer my wife and I decided to leave a large swath of our lawn uncut, she calls it our "Pollinator Garden." It took me a while to get over my (mostly irrational) fears of what our neighbors would say, but observing this large patch of milkweed has become the best thing for my creative mind, and we hope cultivating it to be a tiny help to our planet as well. The milkweed patch has been an attractor for all sorts of creatures, but the most fascinating have been the bees and Monarchs. Growing up in rural Maine we would have constant contact with Monarchs in all of their stages, and it was bittersweet to be so excited about them now, a sign of how much our planet has changed and how fragile our world seems.
I started to video the milkweed patch, and it didn't take long for it to be an obsession and a real project. I was astounded by how hard every creature works to survive! The Monarch caterpillar pictured above has an astounding routine on its journey to become a butterfly. The milky sap from the milkweed would harm them, so before they eat the leaves they carefully chew through the vein that would carry the sap, cutting it off and allowing them to eat in peace. And eat they do, it is tiring just to watch!
We had more types of bees and other insects visit than I could identify, but the swarms of honey bees made the best subject:
As a composer I have never found anything more confounding and impossible to work through than possibility without boundary. My best work has always come from a well placed limitation; sometimes abstract, sometimes concrete, but for me a spark never comes from the sprawling confusion, but rather from a narrow niche carved out of the endless possibilities. It is difficult to say exactly how or why, but the creatures I captured on video, and the plant that sustains their busy lives have cracked open the exact right niche for me in this moment, and for that I am grateful. Please stay tuned for more updates and the final work: Milkweed.
-NJS
I created the following videos with demo recordings and perusal scores for my new work Four Winter Carols, please subscribe to my YouTube Channel and let me know what you think in the comments section, many thanks!
-NJS
1. The Mahagony Tree
2. Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind
3. Under the Holly Bough
4. Carol of the Field Mice
Four new carols in time for Holiday Season concert programming for 2019.
-NJS
Demo recordings:
Christmas is here;
Winds whistle shrill,
Icy and chill,
Little care we;
Little we fear
Weather without,
Shelter’d about
The Mahogany Tree.
Commoner greens,
Ivy and oaks,
Poets, in jokes,
Sing, do you see:
Good fellows' shins
Here, boys, are found,
Twisting around
The Mahogany Tree.
Once on the boughs
Birds of rare plume
Sang, in its bloom;
Night birds are we;
Here we carouse,
Singing, like them,
Perch’d round the stem
Of the jolly old tree.
Here let us sport,
Boys, as we sit—
Laughter and wit
Flashing so free.
Life is but short—
When we are gone,
Let them sing on,
Round the old tree.
Evenings we knew,
Happy as this;
Faces we miss,
Pleasant to see.
Kind hearts and true,
Gentle and just,
Peace to your dust!
We sing round the tree.
Care, like a dun,
Lurks at the gate:
Let the dog wait;
Happy we ’ll be!
Drink every one;
Pile up the coals,
Fill the red bowls,
Round the old tree.
Drain we the cup.—
Friend, art afraid?
Spirits are laid
In the Red Sea.
Mantle it up;
Empty it yet;
Let us forget,
Round the old tree.
Sorrows, begone!
Life and its ills,
Duns and their bills,
Bid we to flee.
Come with the dawn,
Blue-devil sprite,
Leave us to-night,
Round the old tree.
-William Makepeace Thackery
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
-William Shakespeare
Ye who have scorned each other
In this fast fading year,
Or wronged a friend or brother,
Come gather humbly here:
Let sinned against and sinning
Forget their strife's beginning,
Be links no longer broken
Beneath the holly bough,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
Beneath the holly bough.
Ye who have loved each other
In this fast fading year,
Sister, or friend, or brother,
Come gather happy here:
And let your hearts grow fonder
As mem'ry glad shall ponder
Old loves and later wooing
Beneath the holly bough,
So sweet in their renewing
Beneath the holly bough.
Ye who have nourished sadness
In this fast fading year,
Estranged from joy and gladness,
Come gather hopeful here:
No more let useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow;
Come join in our embraces
Beneath the holly bough;
Take heart, uncloud your faces
Beneath the holly bough.
-Charles Mackay
Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow, and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;
Joy shall be yours in the morning!
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away you to greet—
You by the fire and we in the street—
Bidding you joy in the morning!
For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison—
Bliss to-morrow and more anon,
Joy for every morning!
Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow—
Saw the star o'er a stable low;
Mary she might not further go—
Welcome thatch, and litter below!
Joy was hers in the morning!
And then they heard the angels tell
'Who were the first to cry NOWELL?
Animals all, as it befell,
In the stable where they did dwell!
Joy shall be theirs in the morning!'
-Kenneth Grahame
Four Rumi Songs was written for Frederick Jodry and the Brown University Chorus, and was first performed in May of 2006. Previously I had set five works by the Sufi poet Mualana Jalal Al-din Rumi (1207-1273) for soprano and piano, and had been profoundly moved by his beautiful imagery, the unique play between the cosmic and material, his subtle insight into the global mystery.
I wrote Four Rumi Songs as a recent transplant to Manhattan after several years working carpentry in rural Maine, and I think the work reflects the abundant optimism (and perhaps a degree of naivety as well) I felt at the time. The words of Rumi speak through time and space to something deep and universal, and overflow with a music of their own. In working on these pieces, I viewed my job largely as tapping into that inherent musical quality that I sensed in studying the texts. It was inspiring to experience how natural the compositional process can be.
Many thanks to Coleman Barks for the kind permission to work with his excellent translations.
-NJS
When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.
And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.
The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.
I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,
and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.
The way of love is not
a subtle argument.
The door there
is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.
It's lucky to hear the flutes for dancing
coming down the road. The ground is glowing.
The table set in the yard.
We will drink all this wine tonight
because it's Spring. It is.
It's a growing sea. We're clouds
over the sea,
or flecks of matter
in the ocean when the ocean seems lit from within.
I know I'm drunk when I start this ocean talk.
Would you like to see the moon split
in two with one throw?
What was in that candle's light
that opened and consumed me so quickly?
Come back, my friend! The form of our love
is not a created form.
Nothing can help me but that beauty.
There was a dawn I remember
when my soul heard something
from your soul. I drank water
from your spring and felt
the current take me.
Translations : © Coleman Barks / Maypop Books. All rights reserved, used by permission.