I found a high school list of things she loved and it included Simone Weil...who she always admired.
The poem is as much about Paula as it is about Weil.
I wrote this music 18 or so years ago. The last time we performed the whole thing (it's 65 minutes) was when a live recording of it (released by Innova recordings) was made in 2001.
I wish it would have occurred to me to put this notice here a few weeks ago, but just in case it's of any interest to you, we will be playing this Thursday night, Oct. 12, at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston. Featuring the wonderful voice of Rebecca Shrimpton (who Paula wrote about on this blog from time to time, as she had taken some voice lessons from Becky).
Like everyone that knew her: I learned so much from Paula, and I learned as much about writing music from setting this text as I have ever learned from anything....when I first read it, it sent chills down my spine: I had to try and make it into music.
You cannot imagine how much I miss her.
Anyway, this event will be a celebration of who she was....and sorry for the formatting issues: I am NOT a seasoned blogger.
5 comments:
Thank you for posting this.
Don't worry about the formatting, there's a poignant lift to see a post here come up on the feed. Glad you are celebrating her in this way, and wishing you courage.
Yes, thank you. I'm in Montreal and therefore far away, but I'm always happy when you post something here, because I think of Paula often and miss her presence here. I'm delighted to know you're performing this work -- all the best!
It was a great performance (even if a bit sloppy in parts)...in the next few weeks or so, I hope to be able to post the video of it on Youtube...We released an album of this in 2003, of a live performance. ALways was happy with that, but: I know we can do it even better, and hopefully, sometime next year we will go to recording studio and make a new recording of it.
About half of my music is settings of Paula's poetry...and I song I co-wrote with Rebecca Shrimpton (who has been singing my settings of Paula's words for nearly 20 years) is text she extracted from Paula's post here, Aftermathamatician...http://paulashouseoftoast.blogspot.com/2013/08/aftermathematician.html
We recorded that last December, along with 2 other poems of hers, "How to Clean A Sewer" and "To An Angel"...will get released sometime in the next year (I hope)...another conjectured recording session will include "A Wallflower In The Amazon"...which we recorded once, album of that name...this version will include a great, improvising string trio.
Oh...and trying to find a way to get a book of her poetry published...
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