Songs of the Earth

Description

Chorus, Oboe, Timpani, Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Double Bass — My daughter Sophie Ruehr, who is a climate scientist, introduced me to BraidingSweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and the book had a profound impact on me. I havewritten many works relating to the complex relationship that humans have with thenatural world, and Kimmerer’s work spoke to me in one of the most honest and positiveways I have ever experienced. It seemed important to me to put her philosophy into amusical context. The result is a coalescence of the main points of Braiding Sweetgrass as Isaw them, compiled into 5 main sections as follows: Opening Prayer, Grief, Gifts,Solutions, Renewal. The Opening Prayer text is taken from the Thanksgiving Address of theOnondaga Nation. The question of cultural appropriation is one that both Kimmerer and Iare sensitive about, but it seemed important to me to include this wonderful way ofacknowledging the Earth that confirms Kimmerer’s own research and personalexperience. Grief and Gifts form an arc that ends with a positive moment. Then we startagain with a very Bach inspired oboe obligato that leads to Solutions. The final Renewal isreally a kind of populist anthem, specifically directed at the congregation of EmmanuelChurch in Boston where the work will be premiered. The idea of a somewhat didactic textreminds me of certain Baroque cantatas that Emmanuel Music often performs duringservices, and I was aware of that tradition as I was composing. The title of the entirework, SONGS OF THE EARTH, is a nod towards Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, borrowingsome aspects of Mahler’s soundscape but interpreted with a contemporaryunderstanding, which has a very different view of the natural world as compared to thatof the early 20th Century.

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