(F)light: a borderlands song cycle

Commission year: 
2010
Grant recipient: 
Women in Harmony

Portland, ME

A song cycle on the theme of immigration, with poetry by Eric Magrane and Wendy Burke (University of Arizona). See Bangor Daily News review(F)light was part of a larger program titled “Moving On: Immigration in Song” also featuring performances by Pihcintu, a multicultural children’s chorus of Maine directed by Con Fullam.

See the 2016 publication What Will Stand: Songs from (F)light, a Collaborative Borderlands Song Cycle. Abstract (excerpted): We wrote and composed the cycle of nine songs in relation to two particular borders: those between Arizona, United States and Sonora, Mexico; and Maine, United States and New Brunswick, Canada. The songs address borders, geopolitics, mobility, emotion, and narrative. We briefly contextualize our collaboration on (F)light and then share three songs from the project, as scores and as sound files performed by Women in Harmony, a women’s chorus in Portland, Maine.

CANE role: 
Premiere date: 
Saturday, May 14, 2011