JP MERZ COMPOSER
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JP MERZ COMPOSER
A Last Look

Watch:

​Listen:

​Instrumentation:
   soprano, violin, cello, piano, perc and electronics

​Premiered:
  Jenna Margiasso, Leslee Smucker, Cecelia Swanson, Alaina DeBellevue, Derek Frank
  conducted by Egemen Kesikli
  February 25th, 2015.  Atlas Blackbox Theater, Boulder, CO. 

​Score:
    Download Perusal Score

​About:   
I was drawn to the nostalgic and understated tone of W.S. Merwin’s poem “A Last Look”. The simple but vivid natural imagery Merwin uses influenced the sound world of this piece which is full of bright, ringing colors and deep, lush electronics. For me, this pairing of text and music evokes memories of the past and the feeling of returning to a once familiar place.
​

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Even the words are going somewhere urban 
where they hope to find friends
waiting for them


some of the friends will think of trees as pleasant in a minor 

       way
much alike after all
to us


some of the friends will never be aware of a single tree 

they will live in a world without a leaf
where the rain is misfortune


all the languages until now have flowed

from leaf to leaf
and have gone like faces


gone like the stone porches of small houses 

and the smell of the forest
in the water of summer


- W. S. Merwin
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