Around 100 years ago, Jamaican-American poet Claude McKay wrote this poem about a poet's hope for posterity. I was taken by a pair of lines in his poem where he prophesies that “Modern kings will throttle you to greet/the piping voice of artificial birds.”
I composed a rich and strange musical setting for the poem: a piano trio playing simply augmented with an oboe, viola da gamba, and a hurdy-gurdy.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
A second poem (now song) by Jamaican-American poet Claude McKay on winter, following up from our last example. The last time McKay embraced winter as reflecting his own moods, but in this one emmigrant McKay imagines a warm island respite.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Continuing in our celebration of the poetry of Claude McKay, here's a short, bittersweet song made from his poem "To Winter." As a Jamaican emmigrant who lived much of his American time in the northern U.S., McKay here outlines a complex set of feelings about this time of the year.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Continuing in our series this Black History Month focusing on the work of Jamaican-American poet Claude McKay. Here's a sonnet of his published The Liberator magazine in 1921, now performed with a new musical accompaniment.
Long-time followers of this Project may remember that I've proposed something I call "The Sandburg Test:" does any substantial collection of the a poet's work include at least one poem dealing with the world of work? McKay tests positive with poems like this one.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
For Valentine's Day and Black History Month, here's Claude McKay's poem of desire "Flower of Love" from his 1922 collection Harlem Shadows after I turned it into an exuberant song.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
The year for Black History Month I've doing series of song-settings of the poetry of Claude McKay, and today's piece has McKay expressing the hope that his poetry might survive the particulars of his life.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Starting off our Black History Month series this year featuring musical presentations of poems by Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay with this one about the immigrant experience, “The City’s Love.”
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 850 of these combinaitons, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org