Blessing

Sorrow will come

May there also be kindness and grace

Easy silence in the place beyond words

and words to warm the silences

A channel that guards the passage

of your small and battered boat

then opens again, wide

2020 by Nodin Press,
Sitting in Lawn Chairs After a Complicated Day
used with kind permission by the author 

Written for the Source Song Festival 2019, Blessing was premiered by mezzo Clara Osowski and pianist Mark Bilyeu as part of a panel discussion entitled "How Text Gets Paired with Song” on August 7, 2019 in the Meisel Room of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, MN.

Stunning in its simplicity, a strong subdivision allows the natural ebb and flow of the boat’s waves to be as reassuring as the text. -MB

A great benediction and simple, meditative piece. Think chant-like vocal production to keep intonation very true. Small range and great for any voice type. Also would be successful for organ and voice. Simple, honest, non-theatrical, and direct. -CO

“Music exists in an infinity of sound.  I think of all music as existing in the substance of the air itself.  It is the composer’s task to order and make sense of sound, in time and space, to communicate something about being alive through music.”

– Libby  Larsen

 Libby Larsen (b. 24 December 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most performed living composers.  She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over twelve operas. Grammy Award winning and widely recorded, including over fifty CD’s of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.

 As a vigorous, articulate advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum, which has become an invaluable aid for composers in a transitional time for American arts.  A former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony and the Colorado Symphony. www.libbylarsen.com

Libby Larsen has ben a pivotal part of Source Song Festival since its launch in 2014.

Marg Walker pursues her abiding interest in the human voice through poetry, creative nonfiction, and choral music. A singer herself, Marg has collaborated with choral artists to create programs of music and poetry, and her poems have appeared in numerous publications. Her first full-length collection, Sitting in Lawn Chairs After a Complicated Day, was published by Nodin Press in February 2020.