Art Songs

From the time Kristen first heard and studied art songs she fell in love with them. The way the voice soars. The way the piano swoops and rises. The poetry. All the feels! A seed was planted then that has now grown into another facet of self-expression for Kristen.

When she composes art songs, one of her aims is to draw upon the wealth of material created by women who generously share their experience of the world—whether that world is fantastical, magical, or mundane. Kristen’s desire is to contribute to a world where little girls—in her life and everywhere—learn from a young age that they are valuable, worthy and as talented and capable as their male counterparts.

Through art songs, Kristen combines her love for poetry and music, the beauty of the voice and piano and the poems she reads that strike a clear chord within her. It creates a triangle for her, connecting the poet’s message to new audiences by setting poems she loves and finding wonderful singers to share these compositions.

 

Current projects include:

“Five Songs on Poems by Sarah J. Sloat,” (set to premiere in the Washington, D.C. area after the pandemic, when it is deemed safe to return to in-person concerts). This set is is drawn from poems in the chapbook In the Voice of a Minor Saint by Sloat and published by Sundress Publications. It includes the following poems:   

 

1. 1. Vestment
   2. Summer’s End
   3. Please Remove My Name
   4. Folk Art
   5. Ghazal for Heavenly Bodies

“The Photograph and The Violin,” three songs on poems by Jude Cowan Montague. This set includes: 

 

1. 1. Inheritance
   2. Photograph
   3. The Violin

A fairytale song cycle on poems by Sally Rosen Kindred is in progress. The poems are drawn from the chapbook Says the Forest to the Girl from Porkbelly Press. “Says the Forest to the Girl” is also included in Kindred’s 2021 collection Where the Wolf from Diode Editions. One of the songs, “Says the Forest to the Girl,”  is scheduled for a premiere by Fresh Squeezed Opera’s Vocal Lab in July 2021.