Tell Me (2010/15)

for tenor & piano

Solo Voice Version of Genesis, Mov. II

Duration: 8'

Commission: Made possible in part by a generous multi-year award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Tell Me was initially developed in American Opera Project's Composers & the Voice fellowship program.

Premiere: December 14, 2015; Blake Friedman, tenor; Kelly Horstead, piano; American Opera Projects; Brooklyn, New York

Soloist: Tenor (A2-Bb4)

Instrumentation: piano

Availability: Contact me, if interested.

Texts: by Richard Siken

Scheherazade

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake

and dress them in warm clothes again.

       How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running

until they forgot that they are horses.

           It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere, 

       it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,

how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days

were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple

to slice into pieces.

Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means

      we’re inconsolable.

Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. 

These, our bodies, possessed by light. 

Tell me we’ll never get used to it. 

Richard Siken