Talea Ensemble; Eduardo Leandro, Conductor

Jeff Missal, Trumpet; David Nelson, Trombone; Julia Den Boer, Piano; Miranda Cuckson and Josh Modney, Violin; Elizabeth Weisser, Viola; Chris Gross, Violoncello; Michelle Lou, Contrabass

Recorded at Roulette in Brooklyn, New York

April 20, 2013

program notes:

I wrote the chamber work Transparent Itineraries based on texts by the poet Gustaf Sobin (1935-2005), an American expatriate poet who lived in France. My first encounter with Mr. Sobin was in 2005, when I set some of his poetry for soprano and chamber ensemble. I had a running correspondence with Mr. Sobin during the time that he was dying of cancer; this experience, although special, was tragic and shocking, so much so that I have not written for solo voice since. In the years after this project, I have been looking for an opportunity to work with Mr. Sobin's texts again.

Gustaf Sobin's poem Transparent Itineraries 1992 is built of nine short parts. His poetry is often episodic, with fleeting explorations of nature, relationships, and the inner workings of language itself. I decided that the musical composition Transparent Itineraries should be a cycle of miniatures, each a response to or a caricature of a gesture illustrated in Mr. Sobin's poem. I intentionally left out the vocalist; rather, the text informs the shape and character of the work in a manner similar to Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht for string sextet or Beethoven's String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135.