Program Note:

Night, Sleep, and the Stars began in February 2018 as part of a collaboration, led by Kevin Puts and Ah Young Hong, between composers and singers at the Peabody Institute.  Working with soprano Madeline Huss, I wrote a piano version of this cycles’ eventual third song, “Strain,” and immediately felt that it belonged with a larger ensemble as part of a cycle.  While exploring texts to pair with Lowell’s “Strain,” I was constantly drawn towards poems about night, and ultimately selected four poems which share strikingly similar reflections while painting vivid pictures of different scenes at night.    

The first poem, attributed - albeit with questionable authenticity - to the ancient Greek poet Sappho, captures in remarkably few words an image of a woman lying alone at night, contemplating the stars and the passage of time.  The second, by Sara Teasdale, paints a vivid picture of a woman’s night with her lover along the Hudson River in New York City. Amy Lowell’s “Strain” then describes a woman lying alone at night, as the first poem, yet with serene contemplation replaced by fear and isolation.  Finally, the fourth poem, taken from Walt Whitman’s “The Sleepers” in Leaves of Grass, describes in a more abstract sense the author’s peace in, and even love for, the night.

Musically, each song is largely distinct from the others, attempting foremost to capture its particular moods. Yet there are several recurring musical threads which run through the cycle, echoing the recurring themes shared by the poems themselves.  A motif, harmony, rhythm, or texture from one song is recontextualized in ways which sometimes leap off the page and other times hide just under the surface.

The title is adapted from the final line of Whitman’s “A Clear Midnight”.