October 12th, 2019 (premiere)

First Church Congregational
Cambridge, MA
17′
Work awarded the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America
Commissioned by the Lorelei Ensemble

“The featured work of the program was the commissioned new composition by Jessica Meyer, one small part of which was presented in a Jordan Hall concert that Lorelei offered with the string ensemble A Far Cry about a year ago. The sample was intriguing, but the entire work was especially enthralling.”

The Boston Musical Intelligencer

PROGRAM NOTE

“I long and seek after” is my 21st century response to one of my favorite song cycles – Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben. While at the Aspen Music Festival many years ago, I was also an usher for many of the concerts, and it was there that I fell in love with Art Song and the Schumann cycle. As a woman in my early 20’s, the text of that piece depicted all that I had come to expect from my future life, given what all the fairytales, Hollywood rom-coms, and Disney movies of my youth had told me: that one day I would meet a man who would sweep me off my feet, I would pledge myself to him, my whole life would be based around his life (and the birth of my future child or children), and that the first real pain will come when that man dies.

Now that I am in my 40’s, it is really clear to me (and to many other women) that this is just not so…and nor should it be. I made a choice in regards to my husband, our partnership, and our son, but many women might not want to make those exact choices. Also, we encounter pain in many different forms much earlier in our lives – but we may not have the voice, the place, or the means by which to speak about it, the ability to break various cycles of behavior in ourselves or others, or the people around us really ready to listen. Using Sappho’s poetry (wonderfully translated by Anne Carson), I wanted to create a cycle that depicts women having the courage to live their life boldly, while growing older gracefully, assuredly, and proudly.