Song Cycle for Medium Voice

Duration: ca. 30 minutes

Premiere: 04.25.2024, Julia Holoman, mezzo-soprano; Rachel Chao, piano

Program notes: In a rare project for me, I began Time Against Our Bodies first as a collection of poems. Later, I approached the poems as a composer, making it into a song cycle. Such a project is a rarity for me because setting one’s own words to music is doubly vulnerable… a risk I’m learning to take more and more, partly out of expressive necessity, and partly out of a desire to stretch myself artistically. 

I’ve repeatedly heard that the best poetry does not make the best music. This has encouraged me to experiment with combining what I am reasonably capable of both as a writer and composer. I hope the result can communicate something authentic, honest, and coherent. 

Time Against Our Bodies distills a theme found in many of my compositions (and in all of my song cycles to date): namely, that of time and the passage of time. At the heart of it, this work grapples with time’s relationship to the various stages of the human lifespan. Each poem approaches this with its own form, its own mood, its own tone, its own search for insight. The words and concepts on the surface are meant to provide a doorway to deeper, intuitive relevance in our common human experience. –DK

Hear samples of Time Against Our Bodies below: