Enfold (2017)
mezzo-soprano, 2 flutes, clarinet in Bb, cello
c. 5 minutes
text by Kate Chopin
Premiered by Estelí Gomez (soprano), Linda Jenkins (flute), Rebecca Larkin (flute), Chelsea Oden (clarinet), Samuel Kalcheim (viola)
Aasen-Hull Hall, Eugene, OR, 7 May 2017
c. 5 minutes
text by Kate Chopin
Premiered by Estelí Gomez (soprano), Linda Jenkins (flute), Rebecca Larkin (flute), Chelsea Oden (clarinet), Samuel Kalcheim (viola)
Aasen-Hull Hall, Eugene, OR, 7 May 2017
The text of Enfold comes from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), the story of a woman in New Orleans who gradually rejects her roles as a mother and wife as she searches for her own independence. Throughout the text, the sea symbolizes the freedom that eludes her. The text I chose appears early in the novel as Edna is first awakened to the possibility of autonomy, and again in fragments at the end when she wades into and is enfolded by the ocean in the ultimate declaration of her own independence.
from The Awakening:
The voice of the sea is seductive;
never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring [...]
in abysses of solitude;
to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.
The touch of the sea is sensuous,
enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
from The Awakening:
The voice of the sea is seductive;
never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring [...]
in abysses of solitude;
to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.
The touch of the sea is sensuous,
enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.