Glasses
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Amanda Deboer Bartletthttps://www.amandadeboer.com/
Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, DMA is a classical vocalist and singer-songwriter based in Chicago, IL. She is a founding member of Quince Ensemble, an all-women contemporary vocal group, and Hasco Duo, an experimental improvisation and songwriting project. She is also a member of and program curator for Ensemble Dal Niente, a Chicago-based chamber orchestra that commissions and performs the music of living composers.
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Unframed
Am I posing?
Or am I just holding a filxhan (phil-jun)?
Is it espresso? American?
Or the one that leaves black sludge in the bottom?
You may think it’s a prop.
Or think I’m acting.
You may even think this is a pose.
It’s not.
It’s just another Wednesday morning.
Light hits your face and
honks hit your ears.
Living room becomes a green room,
becomes a studio, then a room again.
It’s a familiar morning aroma,
that feels like home.
You are either aware of your influences, or you are controlled by them. Musical Conversations with the Past.
Very often these days, when I start to think about a new piece, I am confronted with a flood of questions: Will this piece be like the last, or will I push myself to discover some new way to express things this time? Do I just start to write and see where things lead, or should I force myself to do some pre-planning (which I hate to do)? Am I writing abstract music, or will the piece be “about” something? It is finding an answer to this last question that preoccupies me the most lately. For example, if I decide to write for a singer, the structure and character of the piece are going to be shaped in dialog with the meaning and expression of the text. But songs with texts are obviously about the subject of the text. There are other, less obvious ways in which a piece of music might be “about something”.
