In the Wake
Everything I saved from the flood
went into the fire: one thing to keep
me warm, another because it
was old and useless, and one
just for the burning.

 I had dreams, forgotten in the morning
as I dressed and got on with my life.
If I had it to do over again,
I would do nothing
the same. 

Now that it’s over, I don’t know what
to make instead of a prayer. Now
the roof’s gone, I can’t
hear the sound of
the rain.

-Joyce Sutphen
used with permission by the author 

In the Wake was composed and premiered as part of the 2021 Source Song Festival. It was written for and premiered by Maggie Ramirez, soprano and Robert Cushing, pianist, and distributed via online broadcast on August 2, 2021.

Brian Stark is a composer and saxophonist earning his DMA at the University of Illinois. He was admitted as the inaugural recipient of the Helgesen Fellowship for Excellence in Jazz Studies and teaches woodwind lessons for the Unit One division. He has studied composition with Paris Rutherford, Steve Wiest, Alan Baylock, Chip McNeill, and Dr. Edwin Childs. His compositions have been recognized by organizations including the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC) Symposium and the Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble Composition Contest. Brian has had compositions and arrangements commissioned by ensembles around the world and released on recordings by the Shout Section Big Band and the UNT One and Two O'Clock Lab Bands.

In addition to jazz, Brian has been active as a singer-songwriter, releasing art-rock albums containing text settings of Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound and Edna St. Vincent Millay along with his original lyrics. In 2014 Brian premiered an original cantata for strings commissioned by Covenant Presbyterian Church in Chicago for their Maundy Thursday service. He eagerly pursues opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and has contributed to multiple musical theater productions and worked with professional flamenco musicians in a series of grant-funded flamenco-jazz projects.

Brian is also an in-demand performer, having performed in professional ensembles led by jazz luminaries including Brad Leali, Adonis Rose, Larry Gray, Dr. Davey Moony, Bob Ojeda, and Chip McNeill. In his spare time Brian enjoys performing in the Champaign-Urbana area with his wife in their ensemble, the Fiddle-Sax Fusion Band..

Further information is available at: www.brianstarkmusic.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.