Performance score available for purchase. Please direct inquiries to Nell Shaw Cohen at nell@nellshawcohen.com.
Program Note
Two friends stroll in a suburb, identifying birds together.
“Rare Bird” is a selection from Sauntering Songs: a concert-length cantata on the theme of walking, commissioned by Skylark Vocal Ensemble. The lyrical works of author, poet, and wildlife biologist J. Drew Lanham were the animating inspiration behind this duet, including my use of the title phrase; alongside essays by Carolyn Finney and Evelyn C. White, among others, about their experiences of being Black outdoors.
This duet is dedicated to walkers for whom being outdoors alone isn’t always safe.
A love letter to wanderlust, Sauntering Songs weaves together art songs, choral music, and literature into an expansive cantata on the theme of walking.
Influences from rock, folk, and musical theater shine in a lyrical and evocative score by composer/librettist Nell Shaw Cohen, marrying the voices of three-time GRAMMY®-nominee Skylark with an instrumental quartet comprised of guitarist James Moore and musicians from Juventas New Music Ensemble.
From Walt Whitman to the present day, Sauntering Songs celebrates diverse characters who search for freedom and fulfillment through subversive journeys on foot.
Perusal Score
Perusal score available on request. Performance score available for purchase. Please direct inquiries to Nell Shaw Cohen at nell@nellshawcohen.com.
Selections available for standalone performance (click titles for details and perusal scores):
BEST FRIEND – Tenor, acoustic steel-string guitar, and cello. 3 ½ mins.
RARE BIRD – Tenor, baritone, electric guitar, and piano. 4 ½ mins.
Credits
Music & Libretto by Nell Shaw Cohen With texts by John Clare, Megan Cohen, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, John Francis, John Muir, Nan Shepherd, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf
Dramaturg: Megan Cohen (Website)
Sensitivity Consultant for song “Best Friend”: Laura Elliott (Twitter)
Sensitivity Consultant for song “Rare Bird”: Dr. Kassandra Ford (Website)
Skylark Vocal EnsembleJuventas New Music EnsembleJames Moore, Guitar
Performance History
Skylark Vocal Ensemble (Matthew Guard, Artistic Director), Juventas New Music Ensemble, and James Moore, guitar; Falmouth Academy, Falmouth, MA, 4/20/23.
Skylark Vocal Ensemble (Matthew Guard, Artistic Director), Juventas New Music Ensemble, and James Moore, guitar; Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, MA, 4/21/23
Skylark Vocal Ensemble (Matthew Guard, Artistic Director), Juventas New Music Ensemble, and James Moore, guitar; St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Newburyport, MA, 4/22/23.
The first version of Fallen Star was written in 2017 during the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, an intensive laboratory for music-theater collaborations directed by Nautilus Music-Theater.
Mashuq Mushtaq Deen and I created Fallen Star in response to a prompt from baritone Joshua Hinck to write a song with themes from Classical mythology. In doing so, Deen also incorporated our shared love of the American West, and the transcendent night skies of Northern New Mexico, into his brilliant lyric.
Fallen Star was later arranged and incorporated into Sauntering Songs: a concert-length cantata on the theme of walking, commissioned by Skylark Vocal Ensemble.
Nashua Pride Festival, Melina Jaharis, mezzo-soprano. Nashua Community Music School, Nashua, NH, 6/25/22.
New Dramatists, version for three voices presented as part of music-theater workshop. Blake Friedman, Nicole Mitchell, and Camille Harris, vocalists, with Charity Wicks, piano. New York NY, 4/19/18.
New Dramatists, version for three voices presented as part of public working session at culmination of the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio. Joshua Hinck, Mallory Hawks, and Lucia Rodrique, vocalists, with Roger Ames, piano. New York NY, 02/03/17.
Opera in one act for 2 sopranos, mezzo-soprano, baritone, and bass-baritone, with electric and acoustic guitars, bass guitar, drum set, 2 violins, viola, cello, and double bass. 71 mins.
Libretto by Megan Cohen. Commissioned by Houston Grand Opera for HGOco’s “Song of Houston” initiative. Recipient of OPERA America Commissioning Grant for Female Composers.
In Turn and Burn, small-town barrel racing champion Shayla Taylor and ambitious executive Jamie Hernandez aim for a big win at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. When an accident threatens Shayla’s career-defining race, the women discover each other’s strength in adversity. Set in a colorful world of bucking broncs and carnival rides, composer Nell Shaw Cohen and librettist Megan Cohen’s original story informed by interviews with rodeo athletes offers a feminist perspective on contemporary rodeo culture.
Performance History
Workshop at Houston Grand Opera, Houston, TX, Geoffrey Loff, Conductor; 12/09/19.
World Premiere production originally scheduled for February 2021, postponed (due to COVID-19) to 2023 .
Opera for 2 sopranos, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, and optional SATB chorus, with flute, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. 90 mins.
A chamber opera in one act inspired by the life of Mabel Dodge Luhan: an early 20th century writer, philanthropist, and international icon of the avant-garde. Continue reading “Mabel’s Call (2018)”
Opera in one act for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, child soprano, SSA choir, and chamber ensemble.
A family holiday opera with a libretto by Edward Einhorn adapted from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: a nontraditional Christmas fairy tale set in the magical world of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Currently in development.
Recording from Untitled Theater Company No. 61’s workshop reading of excerpts from the opera in piano-vocal score:
