A Poem and a Text Score

by Michael Genese

4 May 2022

a five year old
starts violin ii part without me
“you left me in the dust!”
asks “what is dust?”

Ekphrastic Song #1

Note from the author:

“This is a text-based score inspired by Pauline Oliveros. Written for the social justice artist collective VOICES 21C, of which I am a founding member, it served as the inaugural composition for our 2020 digital residency with The Choral Commons. (I also served as head facilitator and producer for this larger residency). I selected text from TCC’s first podcast conversation with Jeremy Haneman, about making choral music with refugee populations. I chose sentences in which the context could be debated or muddled, as being either be about displacement or music-making. I also included excerpts from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” in hopes that the artistic product would be a condensation of thoughts, processes, observations, and multi-dimensional contexts. Upon completing this inaugural piece, a co-founder of The Choral Commons named the piece “Ekphrastic Song #1,” and in the spirt of collaboration, it stuck. That recording of the piece can be heard here.”

MICHAEL GENESE [dʒə-nis] (they/he) is a composer, educator, and multi-instrumentalist who asks how music can foster intersectionality in our collective thinking. Genese is an Artist Ambassador with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and principal architect of New Bedford Symphony’s K-12 Music Keyword Equity Database. They hold degrees in Music Education, Vocal Performance, and Music Composition, and teach private music lessons in New York City.

michaelgenese.com | @michael_genese

>>next>>