Program Note

My friend, Terri Eckel, commissioned me back in 2021 to set poetry by her favorite poet, Margaret Gibson, Connecticut’s Poet Laureate. I completed this set in March of 2022. As a student of John Luther Adams her poetry reminded me of his environmental activism. Gibson’s words celebrate natures serenity, sublimity, and absurdity, and in these stirring studies, she reminds us of our duty as guardians. I found the poetry both intensely beautiful and challenging. While getting to know this text, I had to research landforms, plant species, and famous physicists, but through the cerebral text I could always feel Gibson’s singing poetic voice, guiding me to the final double-bar. I like to think that when one sings this cycle they become the celebrant to an environmental liturgy in the cathedral of our natural world.