Sauntering Songs (2022)

Cantata for 2 sopranos, 2 mezzo-sopranos, 2 tenors, baritone, bass-baritone, and SATB chamber choir, with flute, guitar (electric, acoustic, and classical), piano, and cello. 62 minutes.

Commissioned by Skylark Vocal Ensemble.

Photograph of dirt path through grassy hills, a figure walking in the distance

A love letter to wanderlust, this World Premiere commission 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.

Continue reading “Sauntering Songs (2022)”

Breath of the Meadow, Heart of the Woodland (2021)

Flute, clarinet, horn, percussion, violin, viola, and cello. 5 ½ minutes.

Commissioned by American Wild Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Landscape Music, and Michigan Technological University Department of Visual and Performing Arts to commemorate the 2022 bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted.

Score

This score will become available for purchase on January 1, 2023. If you’d like to be notified at that time, please inquire with Nell Shaw Cohen at nell@nellshawcohen.com.

Program Note

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted described urban parks as “the lungs of the city.” My music responds to Olmsted & Calvert Vaux’s expression of this metaphor through the iconic meadows and woodlands of New York City’s Prospect Park (1867) and Central Park (1858).

A lyrical theme, accompanied by sustained chords held against the flow of undulating triplets, opens and closes the piece. This music evokes the parks’ meadows, where the human body and the body of the landscape are connected through shared “breath.” Stepping off a busy sidewalk into these wide open spaces, the sensation of my lungs filling with fresh air feels like the echo of a gentle breeze blowing through treetops and grasses.

A middle section of syncopated rhythms and sinuous counterpoint recalls the parks’ winding woodland interiors, which reflect the “heart” of both visitor and landscape. These woodlands are spaces for contemplation and intimate conversation, where dense forest gives cover to an enigmatic network of footpaths.

Even as I cherish these two parks, I find their present-day terrain obfuscates a complex history. Seneca Village (1825-1857) was a vibrant Black community, which New York City’s government forcibly vacated in order to build Central Park. Both parks continue to occupy Lenapehoking: the unceded homeland of the Lenape.

The concept of parks as “lungs” may have come from Olmsted’s work in public health during the Civil War. Yet this idea feels strikingly poignant in our own time of pandemic and climate crisis, and has given inspiration and impetus to my music.

Related Content

Performance History
  • Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, 10/09/22.
  • American Wild Ensemble (Emlyn Johnson, flute, Ellen Breakfield-Glick, clarinet, Joel Ockerman, horn, Lauren Cauley, violin, Molly Goldman, viola, Daniel Ketter, cello, Colleen Bernstein, percussion), Highland Park, Rochester, NY, 8/07/22.
  • Juventas New Music Ensemble (Wei Zhao, flute, Wolcott Humphrey, clarinet, Anne Howarth, horn, Jesse MacDonald, violin, Lu Yu, viola, Minjin Chung, cello, Tom Schmidt, percussion), Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, MA, 6/04/22.
  • American Wild Ensemble (Emlyn Johnson, flute, Ellen Breakfield-Glick, clarinet, Joel Ockerman, horn, Lauren Cauley, violin, Molly Goldman, viola, Daniel Ketter, cello, Colleen Bernstein, percussion), CCNY Spitzer School of Architecture, New York, NY, 5/28/22.
  • American Wild Ensemble (Emlyn Johnson, flute, Ellen Breakfield-Glick, clarinet, Joel Ockerman, horn, Lauren Cauley, violin, Molly Goldman, viola, Daniel Ketter, cello, Colleen Bernstein, percussion), Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, 5/28/22.
  • Juventas New Music Ensemble (Wei Zhao, flute, Wolcott Humphrey, clarinet, Anne Howarth, horn, Ryan Shannon, violin, Lu Yu, viola, Minjin Chung, cello, Tom Schmidt, percussion), Multicultural Arts Center. East Cambridge, MA, 3/26/22.

Fallen Star (2017/arr. 2020)

Baritone and piano. 6 1/2 mins.

Lyrics by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen.

Perusal Score

View perusal score.

Performance score available for purchase. Please direct inquiries to Nell Shaw Cohen at nell@nellshawcohen.com.

Also available as part of NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music: Trans & Nonbinary Voices, Vol. 1.

Program Note

Fallen Star was written in 2017 within the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, an intensive laboratory for 36-hour music-theater collaborations, co-directed by Ben Krywosz and Roger Ames of 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 and supporting roles for soprano and mezzo. 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. This was our first of several collaborations as composer and lyricist. I recently created this new arrangement of Fallen Star, adapting the characters of Venus and Callisto into a work for a solo performer, and hope it may reach new audiences in this form.

Related Content

Performance History

Nashua Pride Festival, Melina Jaharis, mezzo-soprano. Nashua Community Music School, Nashua, NH, 6/25/22.

New Dramatists, arrangement 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, arrangement 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.

Blue Shadows, Silver Sunlight (2019)

SATB choir. 9 mins.

Live recording by Boston Choral Ensemble (Klo Garoute, Conductor):

Commissioned by Boston Choral Ensemble.

Any of the three movements may be programmed separately as standalone works for performance.

Perusal Score

View perusal score.

Performance score available for purchase. Please direct inquiries to Nell Shaw Cohen at nell@nellshawcohen.com.

Continue reading “Blue Shadows, Silver Sunlight (2019)”

Retrace (2018)

Flute, violin, and cello. 7 ½ mins.

A work inspired by the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, explored through an independent artist residency following the trail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, CA. Retrace was written in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the National Trails System Act of 1968, for World Premiere on the Landscape Music: Rivers & Trails concert series.
Continue reading “Retrace (2018)”