Sojourn

Poetry plays an important role in my music and provides a seemingly limitless reservoir of musical ideas derived from the imagery that poetry provokes. This work, a musical ‘sojourn’, embraces Henry David Thoreau’s profoundly touching words that perfectly encapsulate the transcendental spirit of nineteenth- century New England life.

As an essayist, author, poet and philosopher, Thoreau produced a voluminous series of introspective journals and other writings that recount his daily life with keen observations about natural history and its relationship to man. In addition, frequent references to music occur in his writing, ‘Music is the sound of the circulation in nature’s veins.’ Joseph Schwantner