Pulling Down the Clouds for mezzo-soprano, electric guitar, percussion, and guitar ensemble (2022)
Pulling Down the Clouds was commissioned by Tucson Guitar Society as a work for mezzo-soprano and guitar orchestra, to be premiered by the Tucson Guitar Orchestra during the Desert Song Festival in Tucson, AZ on April 2, 2023.
For this work, I was incredibly lucky to collaborate with the leading literary light of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Dr. Ofelia Zepeda, recipient of the MacArthur “Genius Grant” and Regents Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. I selected several poems from Dr. Zepeda’s beautiful collection Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert that are written both in Tohono and English. I enjoyed the journey of setting her poems to music, and learning more about the language and culture of the people of the Sonoran Desert.
Instrumentation: Mezzo-soprano, percussion (one player: bass drum, suspended cymbal, conga drums, triangle, finger cymbals, shakers, mark tree, glockenspiel), solo electric guitar, guitar ensemble (4 parts, with Guitar 1 divisi).
Approximate duration: 10 minutes
Texts by Ofelia Zepeda (excerpts from Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert):
Prologue:
With my harvesting stick I will hook the clouds.
With my harvesting stick I will pull down the clouds.
With my harvesting stick I will stir the clouds. (Pulling Down the Clouds)
Wind:
It is new air,
air, coming from faraway places.
From skies untouched,
from clouds not yet formed.
…Just watch, when the wind stops, the rain will fall. (Wind)
The Ritual:
‘Oig ‘o, ‘oig ‘o
before it becomes light
‘oig ‘o, ‘oig ‘o
there are still songs to be sung
before the sun comes up
there is still a little bit of night left. (O’odham Dances)
Clouds:
Ce:daghim ‘o ‘ab wu:sañhim.
To:tahim o’ ab’ wu:sañhim.
Cuckuhim ‘o ‘ab him.
Wepeghim ‘o ‘abai him.
Greenly they emerge.
…Whitely they emerge.
…Reddening, they are right here. (Na:nko Ma:s Cewagi/Cloud Song)
Thunder:
Summer clouds sit silently.
…quietly gathering strength…from the good winds.
This strength that becomes the thunder.
The thunder so loud it vibrates the earth.
The thunder that surrounds us. (Cewagi)
Epilogue:
In our hands we capture the first light.
We are complete with this light.
This is the way we begin and end things. (O’odham Dances)
Please contact me to purchase the score.