PORTLAND YOUTH PHILHARMONIC AND IN MULIERIBUS PRESENT WORLD AND WEST COAST PREMIERE PERFORMANCES IN MAY
Posted on March 20, 2023
New works uplift women’s voices through song
PORTLAND, OR – Award-winning composer Jessica Meyer’s new work, Because I Will Not Despair, set to poems by acclaimed Portland poet Alicia Jo Rabins, will be premiered by professional women’s vocal ensemble In Mulieribus and Portland Youth Philharmonic’s (PYP’s) Camerata PYP, the organization’s chamber orchestra, in May 2023. The three performances will take place on May 5 at Willamette University’s Hudson Hall, May 12 at St. Philip Neri Church in Portland, and May 13 at Lewis & Clark College’s Evans Auditorium.
Because I Will Not Despair was co-commissioned by PYP and IM, and is named after one of the poems set in the piece. This cross-continental and intergenerational experience is a love letter to women everywhere; through orchestral and vocal excellence, Camerata PYP and IM will take you on a musical journey of breaking, resisting, and ultimately achieving healing.
The four poems that are infused into Because I Will Not Despair were written by Rabins between 2016 and 2020. With themes of pain and peace woven throughout, Rabins hopes audiences will feel “supported, held, and strengthened by our connections with one another.”
“Rupture, resistance, healing, and resilience were on my mind and in my heart, as I followed the news while raising two young children and thinking about the past and the future,” Rabins reminisced. “It’s a deep honor to have these poems set to music by composer Jessica Meyer, and especially meaningful knowing that they will be performed by a vocal ensemble and youth orchestra right here in Portland, where these poems were born. These poems are about our shared vulnerability, and our shared power.”
Meyer and Rabins have been inspired by each other since a fateful meeting on a plane in 2013, shortly after Meyer realized she was always meant to be a composer.
“I really resonate with the perspective Alicia writes from: being a woman, a mother, a wife, a community builder, a spiritual being, and a creator,” Meyer reflected. “Her imagery is already visceral, so it made my job easy to set her words to music. Interestingly, I have been in the midst of my own active healing since last summer, so setting this particular text at this juncture was quite timely and indeed very cathartic… In a time that women are still being questioned and devalued on a daily basis, I dedicate this work to anyone who needs to hear these words right now.”
Also on the program is the West Coast premiere of Kareem Roustom’s Hurry to the light – a musical setting of text from Homer’s “The Odyssey,” newly translated by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Emily Wilson. In this translation of this epic tale, we see more than ever before the many examples of the power of women. Inspired by Wilson’s subtleties in language to “clear the misogynistic dust left by previous English translations” (Roustom), Roustom only gives voice to the women of the story, rather than our hero, Odysseus.
“I think Hurry to the Light fits well into the concert’s theme because it presents, among other things, vignettes of Penelope, who kept the suitors at bay while waiting hopefully for Odysseus to return home from war,” Roustom shared. “Emily Wilson’s recent translation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” breathes a new life into this ancient tale by making the language more contemporary to our ears, but by also bringing to light the role of women in that great tale. I am thrilled that [Camerata PYP and In Mulieribus] will present this work to a new audience because performing it publicly continues the ancient tradition of storytelling that goes back to time immemorial. I hope that the audience will feel that they, too, are taking part in this ancient tradition and that they might be moved by the compelling narrative of Homer’s tale through the beauty of Wilson’s translation and my setting of it with music.”
Tickets for performances on May 12 and 13 are $10 for students, $15 for seniors, and $30 for adults; visit Willamette.edu for May 5 concert information. To learn more about the program, ensembles, composers, and to purchase tickets, visit portlandyouthphil.org/concerts; tickets may also be purchased at the venue door.
This project is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and Ronni Lacroute. The official media sponsor is All Classical Portland.