Call Across (2021)

Music: Kyle Pederson

Text: Brian Newhouse

From Our Concert Series Can We Talk... About Our Friends

Artistic Director: Deborah Simpkin King

Sara Stopek, soprano • Ruston Ropac, alto • Billy Shaw, tenor • Christopher Tefft, baritone

Collaborative Pianist: Matthew Oden

Percussionist: Peter Saleh

Performance Captured by MUSAE

Video Extraction, Titles and Staging by James Mosser

Show Art by ATUM Kreative

TEXT:

I. Alone, for days without number / through forest and fjord I sing,

aching for your voice.

Not the sound of wind scraping rock / not the leaves empty talk

nor the sound of the brook; / but oh, for your voice

hungry and looking as mine.

Let it arc over mountain like a gull over water,

rush through the deep green and land in my heart.

To hear my name again, to be beloved and belong,

to be at home wherever I go...

There is no beauty without your voice.

II. The dry grass here runs forever.

It whispers without end and bends for rain that never comes,

and at the horizon it rises like smoke.

Grandfather walked here before me, his grandfather long before him.

Ancestors from across the centuries—step now from your silence and walk with me.

I will build my fire tonight against the dark and its teeth of all kinds,

yet I would fear nothing if only the light found your face.

You who walked these same fields, whose blood I share,

whose name I carry, step in and say my name as I say yours.

There is no beauty without your voice.

Additional Shona text: Tsvaga urare, gara udare, dare rinokuriga

Translation: Rest, remain in peace, trials/troubles can kill you

III. Brick and mortar / fence and guard/ glass and glare

fact and fake / lock and key

privilege protects me, seals me in safety.

I throw bolts to bar the door,

build walls and ward off the world--

though it seals me as well in silence.

And the soul shrinks down / and the heart grows small.

There is no beauty without your voice.

IV. I call across canyons, I call across plains.

I call across colors, I call across time.

What beauty can we make if our voices join?