WATER PORTRAIT.
Opus. 60
Instrumentation: Soprano + Piano
Duration: 14 minutes, three movements
Commissioned By: Griffin Candey and the Dark Sky Project
Poetry: Stephanie Ann Boyd
Cover Art: Sasha Parfenova
Scroll down for program note, recording, perusal score,
purchase options, and commissioner biography
PROGRAM NOTE.
The Dark Sky Project came together with one goal in mind: to commission three new song cycles from women composers that reclaim narratives that history glossed over. The brainchild of Griffin Candey, the Dark Sky Project resulted in three new song cycles for voice and string quartet, written by Frances Pollock, Tina Tallon, and myself, and written for mezzo-soprano Megan Ihnen, soprano Hillary LaBonte, and Ypsilanti’s ÆPEX Contemporary Performance. These three sets of songs place Shakespeare’s female characters alongside those from recently-written texts. The resulting pairings ask questions about context and time: as women, what agencies and strengths do we find in the characters of yesterday, and what of those same qualities do we find in poetry about women today?
I'm grateful to Jessica Lynn Suchon for sharing her work with me for the third time for this endeavor, lending me two poems of hers: First Lesson and Epilogue. Thank you as well to Griffin Candey, who instigated and coordinated this whole project, and thank you to Megan Ihnen; undoubtedly my muse for this work. Æpex made the premiere of this piece possible: thank you Garrett Schumann and Kevin Fitzgerald and the marvelous musicians of Æepex! And thank you to Sasha Parfenova for letting me use one of her incredible collages as the imagery for this piece.
POETRY.
First Lesson
Jessica Lynn Suchon
Suddenly the stars were white teeth of girls who couldn’t keep their mouths shut.
This was before I did not know I was anything more than girl. My skinny legs opened
and there I was in the cold of winter,
on my back beneath the branches’
cracked necks. The ground under me
dusted in juniper berries. I think something
was stolen and placed back into my body,
my skin plucked bare by an older pair of hands.
In all of the years that come after, whose
body do I keep waking in? The neighbor boy teaches me how to keep a secret, how to bury
a dead thing deep inside of me. He says
that’s what you do when you love someone.
from Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
Cleopatra:
No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks
And does the meanest chares. It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
To tell them that this world did equal theirs
Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but naught;
Patience is scottish, and impatience does
Become a dog that's mad: then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death,
Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!
My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,
Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart:
We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us. Come, away:
This case of that huge spirit now is cold:
Ah, women, women! come; we have no friend
But resolution, and the briefest end.
Epilogue
Jessica Lynn Suchon
In every wave crest, the rumble of his drunken
mythology – Some god carved man’s hands
from his own breastbone. The first woman: a nest
woven from severed tongues and black feathers.
He was a liar. I knew it the first time
he came home with long hairs tangled into his coat
collar and cracked my skull for asking
questions. Maybe he loved me or maybe my body
has always had a need for sacrifice. I strip the stem
of a cattail with my fingernail until the pulp colors
my skin gold. I have lived a long time in this body. I know
how the origin goes: Adam was dust, first sad boy
without a father. Eve was less than that – bone of his bone.
Some days I believe love is more than blistering
blood or gutted hallelujah, that my heart is a fist unfolding.
Details // Concert Prep
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PDF Score + Part(s) sent via email within 2-3 business days. I’m excited to connect with you!
Purchase is for one copy only, just for you! Please don’t share or else I’ll be sad when I see it in my google alerts ; - )
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I want to meet you! Purchase of this pdf in the 23/24 season comes with a 30 min zoom session, if you’d appreciate that during your rehearsal process. You’ll receive scheduling instructions in the delivery email with your music.
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I’m excited to help promote your concert(s) on social media and include it on the website!
If you already have a concert date in mind, you’ll receive instructions on sending me concert info in the delivery email with your music.
ARTIST biography.
Megan Ihnen is a “new music force of nature.” The act of live performance is integral to Megan’s work and her performances thrive on elaborate sound worlds and fully-developed dramatic interpretations. Through narrative and non-narrative musical storytelling, she explores the subjects of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and relationships. Whether through chamber music, staged recitals, opera, or large ensemble soloist work, she emphasizes the full range of vocal sounds, timbres, colors, and uses that characterize the 21st century voice.
Megan is a prolific new music vocalist who has appeared with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, Latitude49, Great Noise Ensemble, Stone Mason Projects, Rhymes With Opera, SONAR new music, and more. She has sung with many outstanding performers including Nadia Shpachenko, Michael Hall, Gregory Oakes, Nick Zoulek, Hillary LaBonte as well as premiered the work of Mara Gibson, Griffin Candey, Garrett Schumann, Christian Carey, Alan Theisen, Anna Brake, D. Edward Davis, and more.
A gifted narrative and non-narrative musical storyteller, Megan’s performance work explores the depths of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and complex relationships. Ihnen’s interpretations of modern and contemporary repertoire have garnered growing acclaim. She is particularly recognized as an excellent recitalist. Her This World of Yes program of contemporary music for voice and saxophone with Alan Theisen explores the themes of pathways, choices, and duality through the work of contemporary composers such as Jessica Rudman, Michael Young, and Michelle McQuade Dewhirst. This World of Yes has been performed across the United States including appearances in Kansas City, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore. With performances in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Colorado Springs, and Kansas City, Ms. Ihnen has worked with violinist Martha Morrison Muehleisen and Rome Prize winner video artist Karen Yasinsky to take audiences on a profound journey through György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments through video and sound. Finally, Ihnen’s Single Words She Once Loved is a performance that centers around the ideas and effects of memory, dementia, and time. It is a deeply personal exploration of the dueling forces of ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ and ‘God gave us memories so that we may have roses in winter’. Single Words She Once Loved features compositions by David Smooke, Ryan Keebaugh, Daniel Felsenfeld, Jeffrey Mumford, and more.
Megan has enjoyed performing as part of Tuesdays @ Monk Space, Access Contemporary Music Thirsty Ears Festival, NEXTET, Ethos NewSound, 6:30 Concert Series, International U.S. Navy Saxophone Symposium, SPLICE Festival, Oh My Ears, Second Sunday Concert Series at Boston Sculptors Gallery, Winifred M. Kelley Music Series at Salisbury House, and more. She has appeared with Zeitgeist New Music, ÆPEX Contemporary Performance, Detroit New Music “Strange Beautiful Music Marathon”, Omaha Under the Radar Festival, Works and Process at the Guggenheim Series, Notes on Fiction Series at the Center for Fiction, New Music Gathering, Contemporary Undercurrent of Song Project, American Opera Theatre, Vivre Musicale, UCCS Music/Peak Frequency Creative Arts Collective, Harford Community College Sunday Afternoon Concert Series, and Silver Finch Arts Collective.
In the spring of 2017, Megan undertook a fundraising project for her first album, “Sleep Songs: Wordless Lullabies for the Sleepless.” She commissioned over 25 diverse composers from the United States and abroad to write brief, wordless lullabies for mezzo-soprano. Megan has also had recordings on Navona Records, Hoot/Wisdom Recordings, I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Fall 2015 Mixtape, and the CarpeDM Seize Des Moines “Music Mix: Volume III” which was featured at the 2016 SXSW Festival.
As a chamber musician, Megan is proud to have trained at the following summer festivals: impuls International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music, Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), Fresh Inc Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, and MusicX.
Her devotion to the proliferation of new music extends beyond the commissioning and performing of music to teaching, workshopping, and mentoring of emerging artists in the field. She also works to increase the visibility and influence of new music through writing on the subject for multiple online and print publications. As a curator, she selected twenty songs for mezzo-soprano and piano for the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music. Mezzo-Soprano, Vol. 1 includes works by: Michael Betteridge, Mark Buller, Stephen DeCesare, Douglas Fisk, Matt Frey, Jodi Goble, Ricky Ian Gordon, Cara Haxo, Cameron Lam, Cecilia Livingston, Shona Mackay, Tony Manfredonia, Nicole Murphy, Eric Pazdziora, Frances Pollock, Julia Seeholzer, Alan Thiesen, Dennis Tobenski, Moe Touizrar, and Ed Windels.
Megan was honored to receive a Phyllis Bryn-Julson Award for Commitment to and Performance of 20th/21st Century Music in 2009 and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Classical Music: Solo Performance in 2014. She was an accomplished violist and drama student before pursuing degrees in music and vocal performance from Augustana University and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Ihnen has been a board member for Baltimore Concert Opera and HOWL performing arts ensemble.
Megan is a devoted teacher who recently shepherded studios at Drake University Community School of Music, Southwestern Community College School for Music Vocations, and Graceland University before taking on communications roles at Nief-Norf, Live Music Project, and New Music USA. She has also been a resident faculty artist for the UMKC Summer Composition Workshop and the Mostly Modern Festival. In addition to UMKC, Megan has presented her popular masterclasses, workshops, and lectures a Bowling Green State University, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Music Gathering, Iowa Thespian Festival, UNCG Greensboro, and Florida Atlantic University. She was also a Visiting Artist for Louisiana State University for the 2018-2019 academic year.
In addition to being an avid podcast listener, Ihnen enjoys drinking good coffee, joking around with her sisters, tweeting about contemporary poetry, and watching Law & Order. She has grand dreams that one day her dog, Hunter, will be the best dog in the neighborhood. She lives in New Orleans, LA and out of her suitcase equally.
Poet biography.
Jessica Lynn Suchon is a widely-published writer who has received fellowships and honors from the Aspen Institute, the Academy of American Poets, and the Tennessee Playwrights Studio. Her book scavenger is forthcoming in 2020 from yesyes books. Jessica's full-length play shopgirls made its debut at the Darkhorse Theater in Nashville, Tennessee in December 2019.
Artist biography.
Sasha Parfenova is a Boston based mixed media artist working primarily in collage. She received her MFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2015. Her work is inspired by the beauty and fragility of the natural world. Using intricately cut images of flora and fauna, hand-drawn or painted elements, found materials, she creates eclectic collages and installations.