Richard D. Russell Awarded a Commission by Fordham University’s “Poets Out Loud”

In Fall 2009, Poets Out Loud put out a call for scores for com­posers inter­ested in col­lab­o­rat­ing with the poets of their orga­ni­za­tion. I am delighted to announce that I was awarded a com­mis­sion for this project, and I was paired with poet Elis­a­beth Frost. I selected three of her poems and com­posed a cycle called “Time is Not an Option.”

The pre­miere will be Sat­ur­day, April 24 at 7:30pm at Ford­ham University’s Lin­coln Cen­ter Cam­pus, Colum­bus Avenue at 60 Street, in the 12^th Floor Lounge. The con­cert is free and open to the public.

The per­form­ers will be sopra­nos Clarissa Lyons and Ilana Zarankin, with Shun-Yang Lee on piano. Other com­posers on the bill include Mar­tin Hen­nessy, Alexan­der Nohai-Seaman, Lawrence Kramer, and Mary Ann Joyce-Walter. In addi­tion to my col­lab­o­ra­tor, Elis­a­beth Frost, other fea­tured poets are Heather Dubrow, Edward Hirsch, Janet Kaplan, and D. Nurkse.