I Sing to Her

I Sing To Her… For:

Mezzo – Soprano and Violin (duration: c. 6 min)

Poem Joy Wassell Timms

Music Gillian R. Menichino

*Premiered in the Studio Theatre on May 12th in the Rosamond Prize Competition at the Royal Northern College of Music Copyright© May 2008

I Sing To Her… For:

Mezzo – Soprano and Violin

Poem Joy Wassell Timms

Music Gillian R. Menichino

I Sing to Her… is based on a poem written by Joy Wassell Timms, describing her elderly mother with symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her mind wanders in and out of reality and her inner mind where thoughts are built up entirely of past memories.

The droning ‘D’ introduced at the beginning by the violin and then joined with the voice is the pitch that reflects her mother’s inner mind and all intonings, the blending of past memories and reality. The detuned ‘A’ string is taken down to where it is just a quarter tone higher in pitch than the ‘D’ string so that when played together with the harmonics and open strings, there is a very distinct and tight dissonance, unique and characteristic of this music. Throughout the piece there is the constant return to pitch ‘D’, the return to her inner mind of which the poem describes and from where the music is extracted.

This piece was composed as a collaborative project between poet and composer for the Rosamond Prize Competition at the Royal Northern College of Music.

I Sing to Her...

Gillian R. Menichino

Poem by Wassell Timms

Mezzo-soprano

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