listen: vocal works listen to orchestral and large ensemble works here • listen to chamber and solo works here please allow time for the sound files to upload some samples are taken from recordings of live performances, playback levels may vary  Faustine (2011-) opera in one act for six voices and orchestra An opera in development with playwright Lucy Thurber after the novella by Emma Tennant, with support from NY City Opera VOX, ROH2 at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Aldeburgh Young Artist Residencies. It is the story of an older woman, Muriel, who sells her soul to the devil for eternal youth because she is in love with her daughter's lover. click here to see the dedicated page on this site Hearing Things (2008) for soprano and piano  This work is a short dramatic scena to poetry by Carl Sandburg and Catherine Carter. It explores both the wonder of the pastoral and the sense of guilt we share about our effect on nature, conveying an inner dialog of present-day conflicting sensibilities. The piece was commissioned by British soprano Claire Booth and pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen. 1. Look at Six Eggs (Carl Sandburg) 2. Hearing Things (Catherine Carter) Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird’s nest. Listen to six mockingbirds Flinging follies of O-be-joyful Over the marshes and uplands. Look at songs Hidden in eggs. — from Cornhuskers (1918) by Carl Sandburg Excerpts of movements 1 and 2 performed by Yunjin Kim, soprano, and Emi Okumura, piano   Streets and Rivers (2007) for baritone and piano This song cycle, with text by American and British woman poets, explores the aspects and anxieties of urban life along the Hudson and the Thames. 1. Upper Broadway (Adrienne Rich) 2. Sudden Collapses in Public Places (Julia Darling) 3. Diving Girl (Helen Dunmore) 4. Hungry Thames (Helen Dunmore) The cycle was commissioned by Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams with funding from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Excerpts of movements 1 and 4 performed by Thomas Lehman, baritone, and Lisa Gonella, piano Neruda Settings (2002-5) for soprano and 10 players Pablo Neruda wrote four volumes of Elemental Odes between 1954 and 1959. The Odes pay homage to animals and to common objects; fusing brilliant, concise description and profound reflection, at once personal and philosophical. My settings of Odes to the Lizard , the Artichoke, the Plate, and the Table are concerned with imagery, motion and rhythm in the language as well as the many double meanings in the texts of these poems. The Ode to the Lizard wonders at the ability of the reptile to blend with its surroundings and also to call up a happy childhood memory. The Ode to the Artichoke is a humorous character study of an 'armored vegetable' and an affectionate homage to its tender hidden heart. The Ode to the Plate sparkles with celestial metaphors for the perfect disk of a plate, as well as the urgency and necessity of its role in daily life. Finally, the Ode to the Table takes us from the realm of domestic memory to one of political and moral decision: the world is a table and we must choose sides, for war or for peace. Neruda Settings, a Paul Jacobs Award commission, was first performed in an initial version at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2002 and completed in 2005. The reduced version Two Neruda Odes includes Ode to the Plate and and Ode to the Table arranged for soprano with cello and piano. It was recorded by Susan Narucki for the CD Arlene Sierra, Volume 1. Excerpts of Neruda Settings performed by ICE, Susan Narucki, soprano, Jayce Ogren, conductor     Hand mit Ringen (2002) for soprano, violin, piano and cimbalom Hand mit Ringen was commissioned by the 2002 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival for Sarah Leonard, soprano, and members of Psappha. It is a setting of the poem by Glori Simmons. Hand mit Ringen —from Bertha Roentgen's hand X-ray This is my bone bound with your ring. Hinged in brevity my hand fans, My skin is a requiem. Remember me 1896. In the gesture I beckon: Enter my ghost's corridor & shipwreck. Crawl between the piping of my satin casket. Here are the keys dangling from my pelvis- Touch my skeleton. This is the way into my darkness Where I inhume the whalebone beneath The window then nestle into the pine box bed To shroud myself with the less Gentle sex. Slamming doors, letting the wind Blow through my legs. Skull & cross- Bone mad. Here, I vanish Only to arrive days later, disheveled. The X-ray's predilection for cells Out of place suits me. This debridement Is better than the old cinch & buttress. Exhume my first wanton hologram: The rat's nest & glass eye, my ten charred nails. I am radiant. — Glori Simmons Used with kind permission from the author Excerpt performed by Psappha, Sarah Leonard, soprano to hear more, visit listen_orchestral.htmllisten_chamber.htmlopera,_faustine.htmldebut_cd.htmlopera,_faustine.htmlhttp://soundcloud.com/arlenesierra/setsshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3

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