The Art of Collaboration in Vancouver

I recently took part in the 2011 Art Song Lab in Vancouver hosted by The Vancouver International Song Institute and The Canadian Music Centre. I was one of 12 composers paired with 13 poets who gathered with the sole aim of collaborating on original art songs. We convened for roughly a week of intense rehearsals and panel discussions culminating in a night of world premieres realized by tremendously talented singers and pianists.


I was fortunate enough to be paired with a fantastic American writer currently residing in Vienna, Gretl Satorious. When I received Gretl's poetry roughly a month prior to the Art Song Lab I was immediately struck by the inherent musicality in the text. The poem, I Grew Up South of Here. And West., is a wonderfully executed series of reflections on Gretl's childhood growing up on a desert landscape in California. The poem's exploration of memory is a topic that I have already explored a great deal musically and I was all too happy to mine again.

Alison & Natalie performing our piece

I was also fortunate enough to work with two very talented musicians, pianist Alison d’Amato and contralto Natalie Burdeny. Natalie, in fact, courageously stepped in having less than a day with the music after our originally assigned singer became very ill. Amongst the four of us, rehearsals, though clearly condensed and with a great deal of musical ground to cover, went amazingly well.

Aside from the close collaborations amongst poet, composer, and musicians, there was ample time to get to know the music and poetry of the other composer-poet teams. It was incredibly worthwhile, especially in a contemporary time in which specialization and artistic isolation are the norm, to have such an open and pluralistic gathering of writers and performers freely engaging one another. It was a week in which I feel very honored to have taken part.