Work
Two Pantoums
for soprano and piano
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About
These songs were commissioned by and written for Goeknil Meryem Biner and Tom McGrath, as part of my work at the University of Otago. Initially, Cilla McQueen offered me the poem 'Bluff Pantoum' to set to music. After the commission from Goeknil and Tom I requested another pantoum from Cilla, and she obliged with 'Mining Lament'.
A pantoum has 4-line stanzas, rhymes, and repeats lines in the following pattern: A B C D B E D F E G F H G I H J etc. The poem 'Bluff Pantoum' was written in 2003 for a friend of the poet's, to give to her husband on her birthday. It draws on images of the sea, which dominate the environment of Bluff, in Southland. 'Mining Lament' (2004) bemoans the destruction of a "golden hill" in Riverton, Southland, by sluicing.
Contents note
1. A Bluff Pantoum
2. Mining Lament
Text note
Poems by Cilla McQueen
Performance history
22 Mar 2007: Performed at the Mozart Fellows Reunion Concert
Performed by Pepe Becker (Soprano) and Emma Sayers (Piano), available on Farquhar and Ritchie A.: "soNgZ"; CD
Performed by Anna Leese (soprano) and Tom McGrath (piano)