“Time is Not an Option” premieres at Fordham University, April 24, 2010

My new piece, “Time is Not an Option” pre­miered last Sat­ur­day, April 24, at Ford­ham University’s Lin­coln Cen­ter cam­pus. This piece was com­mis­sioned by the Poets Out Loud fac­ulty of Ford­ham. Unfor­tu­nately, the Ford­ham poet I was paired with, Elis­a­beth Frost, was unable to attend as she is in Europe on a Ful­bright schol­ar­ship. Fordham’s poet-in-residence, Janet E. Kaplan, dep­u­tized in the read­ing of Frost’s poems. The esteemed musi­col­o­gist, Lawrence Kramer, ref­er­eed the award­ing of com­mis­sions, and was the evening’s emcee. As well, he offered up some of his own music and poetry.

The musi­cians came by way of Bard Col­lege in upstate New York. Soprano Ilana Zarankin sang many of the other songs this evening, and soprano Clarissa Lyons per­formed my par­tic­u­lar cycle. Shun-Yang Lee was the evening’s accompanist.

Other com­posers on the evening included Mar­tin Hen­nesey, Mary Anne Joyce-Walter, and Alexan­der Nohai-Seaman. The poems set to music were writ­ten by Edward Hirsch, D. Nurske, Janet Kaplan, and Heather Dubrow.

It was a great con­cert, so I’m post­ing a lot of pics here, Click image for a larger size.

Clarissa Lyons

Shun Yang, piano; Clarissa Lyons

Lawrence Kramer

Clarissa Lyons, Shun Yang, Richard Russell

Ilana Zarankin, Clarissa Lyons, Richard Russell

Janet Kaplan, Lawrence Kramer, Richard Russell