Imperiled Blaze (2015)

For tenor/baritone, transcription for soprano in progress. $20 for two copies of the score and demo recordings; overall range A2-Bb4. Order here. On five poems by Greenville area poets associated with the Emrys Foundation written specifically for this project, and premiered on the program Message of the Migrant to benefit the Greenville-area environmental preservation organization Upstate Forever.. The “Imperiled Blaze” is the Monarch butterfly, in serious decline owing to a variety of pressures – pesticides, habitat degradation, and obstacles along its migratory route – from humans. The poems also address issues aside from the Monarch itself. Complete program notes and poetry are here. The songs:

I. Immigrants (Keller Cushing Freeman) - fast and somewhat turbulent; about 2:30, range Bb2-F4. As the poet emphasizes the relentless, unstoppable drive of the Monarch to migrate, the piano similarly sounds a pulsing drone throughout.  The voice part – at first – is also cast in forward-leaning rhythms and repeats short bits of the poem insistently.  As if to mimic the north-south reversal of the migration, at the halfway point of the song the lines are repeated in reverse, with more drawn out melodies and less repetition.  Could these images remind one of people as well as butterflies?

II. What Place This (Jan Bailey) - moderate tempo, 5/4, about 2:15; range B2-E4. Here the Monarch is just one of a legion of small natural miracles that unconsciously follow their annual rhythms, each providing their own inestimable wonder in the process.  How can we humans, with our heavy self-awareness, fit into this scene?

III. Clew (Marian Willard Blackwell) - slow, sparse, atmospheric, about 2:45; range A2-E4. A newly-emerged female waits out the vulnerable 2-3 hours required for her wings to harden, and then flies off into a brief, hazardous and wondrous life, carried by her instincts and the wind.  She may be a midsummer Monarch or perhaps one of the last, migratory generation.  The music plumbs the mysteries of her instincts and the random beauties of the world she will inhabit; the beginning evokes the miniature jungle in which the pupa has been gestating, followed by quiet, lush harmonies of the sky.

IV. Against the Odds (Sue Lile Inman) - fast, 6/8, mostly light with outbursts and a violent ending, about 2:30; range C3-Bb4. This sonnet speaks bluntly of the many unfeeling forces that threaten this delicate creature and contrasts them with the butterfly’s beauty and instinctive determination.  Similarly, the music juxtaposes sections of buoyant elegance with sections of menace and foreboding.

V. Dream Migrations (Nancy Dew Taylor) - slow, lush, contemplative, about 3:00; range C3-F4. This song looks in on a woman in the last year of her life as she fosters a Monarch chrysalis, fascinated by its metamorphosis into a state of hard-won freedom.  She is aware of her mortality and the song watches her watching - she is focused, noticing the small but beautiful things, and pondering the analogies with her own life.