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Bespoke Songs

love songs for soprano and chamber groupNEW

  • Year

    2022

  • Duration

    30:00

  • Level

    Professional

  • Perusal Score

    View

Movements:

1. Here is a poem
2. The Admonition
3. New lovers
4. Elegie
5. If a lover brings an orange
6. Song of Songs
7. At Winter Solstice
8. Is there ecstasy
9. Kärlek [Love]
10. One morning
11. Любовь (Lyubov) [Love]
12. This is my poem

Bespoke Songs is a cycle of love songs for soprano and chamber group setting twelve poems in six languages (English, French, Hebrew, Korean, Swedish, and Russian). Six texts written by women poets spanning two millennia are framed and interpolated by six new texts written specifically for the piece by contemporary poet Kristina Faust. The result is a poetic narrative of a Love Anticipated, Found, Lived, Lost, and Remembered. The “Bespoke Songs Project” was a true collaboration between myself, soprano Fotina Naumenko, and my spouse, conductor Nadège Foofat.

Above audio is an 8′ selection of excerpts. Complete recording released July 5, 2024 on New Focus Recordings.

Genres:   New WorksChamberVocal

Subgenres:   ChamberSong

Instrumentation

soprano, clarinet, saxophone (alto & soprano), violin, cello, guitar, percussion, piano

Commissioned by

Fotina Naumenko
with support from
Shenandoah University
Hermine Drezner
and the Canada Council for the Arts

Premiered

March 9, 2022

Recorded on

  1. Fotina Naumenko BESPOKE SONGS

Recent Performances

  • March 9, 2022 - Fotina Naumenko, soprano | EDGE Ensemble | WORLD PREMIERE at Bright Box Theater, Winchester, Virginia. Conducted by Nadège Foofat. Garrick Zoeter, clarinet | Timothy Roberts, saxophones | Akemi Takayama, violin | Edward Cho, cello | Karlyn Viña, percussion | Hang Yin, guitar | Marika Bournaki, piano

Purchase

This work is in manuscript.