Monday, 2:00 p.m.
The Festival has always included music along with writers as part of the program; this year, two composers were commissioned to set poems to music, and we moved into a great open space in the student union to hear those poems sung.
Pamela Gervais had to come in from work in the fields to play piano for her compositions. The poems she'd set to music were "After the Heat Wave" by Maxine Kumin, "The Farm" by Donald Hall, and "A Woman, A River, Evening" by Larry Gavin. Contralto Shirlee Gilmore sang the poems. They were lovely and rich, light and dark and lingering.
Peter Lothringer composed music for mixed chorus, setting to music "Buffalo Commons" and "Orchard in Bloom" by Tim Murphy and "Corn Poem" by Leo Dangel. The works were performed by the SMSU Concert Choir with Russell Svenningsen, conductor. You do not know earnestness until you see this concert choir at work. The songs were lovely, and the performance was lovely, and the members of the choir were lovely and so intensely focused on the beauty of what they were creating.
That beauty reminds us poets of the roots of what we do; reminds us that poetry finds origin in song; reminds us that words and music are brother and sister among the arts. On behalf of the poets and writers, let me say Thank You to the singers and the musicians. Thank you. It was a fit and pleasing interlude.
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