Rodin is at the top of the stairs
like a sculpted man. He stands still
until, on command, he comes down,
down, down, as if descending a throne.

 Pygmalion-like, he is thinking of
flesh, of flesh turning to stone, stone
turning to bone, moment without
movement, marble into motion.

 Rodin works his hammer and
chisel, blinks away stone with a
flickering eye, and steps back
(rough-flaked with marble)

 to turn the torso on its wooden
pedestal, wedge his chisel, strike,
turn it again and strike another
blow. He does these things for

 the camera; he already knows how 
it will work: how it will make his 
body into flat dead air and then
let it pretend it is heavy with life.

-Joyce Sutphen
used with permission by the author 

Rodin on Film was composed and premiered as part of the 2021 Source Song Festival. It was written for and premiered by Devon Russo, bass-baritone and Pierre-Nicolas Colombat, pianist, and distributed via online broadcast on August 4, 2021.

Chinese-born, US-based composer and pianist Lingbo Ma’s compositions have been performed in the US, China, and Europe. In 2018, she was commissioned by the Metropolis Ensemble. Her recent projects included one-act opera “In Loving Memory” with libretto by Hannah McDermott, “Two Gu Cheng Songs” which was staged and performed at Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam as part of their season opening project FAUST [WORKING TITLE] in September 2020, and music film “What’s next?”, which was composed, directed and shot by the composer herself, played by the award-winning Attacca Quartet and premiered at Juilliard’s Creative Associate Series in November 2020. Her song cycle “Cantos of a Narcissistic Roommate” was premiered at the Juilliard Liederabend concert in April 2021.

As a pianist, aside from traditional piano repertoire, Lingbo regularly performs and records her own works and works by peer composers. She is particularly interested in collaborating with singers. She proposed and promoted the “Vocal Music by Woman Composers” concert and lecture series during her undergraduate years with soprano Julia Cohen. The piano and voice duo has performed in various venues around Boston.

Lingbo attained Bachelor of Music degree with honors from New England Conservatory. She currently pursues her Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School, where she is a Morse Teaching Fellow, an Undergraduate Music Theory Teaching Assistant, and a Gluck Community Performance Fellow. Lingbo also serves as the composition mentor of the New York-based Opportunity Music Project. www.lingboma.com

Joyce Sutphen grew up on a farm in Stearns County, Minnesota. She is a professor emeritus of English at Gustavus Adolphus College and is Minnesota’s poet laureate.

She is the author of seven poetry collections, including Straight Out of View, Coming Back to the Body, and Naming the Stars, and is a coeditor of To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present.

Joyce Sutphen serves as the first Poet-In-Residence at Source Song Festival for our 2021 Festival.