Tupelo Poems (SATB) (2017)
This piece is priced for a large ensemble. When appropriate, use code MEDIUMSENSEMBLE for 50% off and SMALLENSEMBLE for 75% off.
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Tupelo Poems is a love letter to the southeastern landscape, using it as a backdrop for a story of lovers, a return to our youths once thought to be lost, a redefinition of home, and the cyclical journeys we take in life.
Premiered by the Choral Arts Initiative and Connor Scott in Newport Beach, CA— 11/9/2022
”Miles” premiered by LSU A Capella and James Rodrigue in Baton Rouge, LA— 4/7/2022
Program Notes
Tupelo Poems is a love letter to the southeastern landscape, using it as a backdrop for a story of lovers, a return to our youths once thought to be lost, a redefinition of home, and the cyclical journeys we take in life.
Musically, Tupelo Poems can be likened to a set of madrigals; the piece utilizes text painting and world-building elements with a harmonic language that simultaneously conveys large breadths of landscape and small gestures of intimacy.
Something More Personal
I was traveling around Louisiana a lot the year I wrote Tupelo Poems. Despite the fact that I have lived here for over two decades, born and raised, I was only just then struck by the beauty of the swamps driving along the I-1 0... probably because I had suffered a few mental breakdowns that year and gleaned some new perspective on life. I was inspired to write something about this beautiful place we call home, but when searching for "Louisiana poetry" on Google, I could only find poems about gumbo and hunting. It wasn't until I found Connor Egan's poems on a poetry blog site under a psuedonym, "Tupelo", that I found a more subtle ode to the landscape— one that focused on the people who lived there and their stories. Irresponsibly, I wrote and completed the music before finally reaching out to "Tupelo" through the website to ask for permission to publish the pieces... thankfully, Connor was very generous with his work. It turns out he was actually going to school with my little sister at LSU at the time, right here in Louisiana.
