Premiere: Virtual Premiere at the Source Song Festival, August 4th, 2021

 

Duration:  ca. 4'

 

Text

by Joyce Sutphen

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"Death, Inc." is a poem from Joyce Sutphen's poem collection, Carrying Water to the Field. I chose this poem in tandem with my collaborators at the 2021 Source Song Festival, Sarah Rogers and Regan Russell; we were all drawn to the poem's strong storytelling sense and its underlying sense of humor. In the poem, death is personified in a variety of ways—a man reading a newspaper at a bus stop, a crazed truck driver high on meth, and a shadow on a tree on the front lawn. In this piece, death’s multi-faceted character is brought to life with a haunted cabaret feeling recalling William Bolcom, as well as sincere, moving, quiet music.

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