Mass (for soprano and percussion, 2012)

"Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison" [Mass Ordinary]

"God, if I need to fly one day
from behind these silent bars,
how will I answer this child's wet eyes?
Let me be, I am a captive bird!
I think about it and yet I know
I'll never be able to leave this cage
Even if the warden should let me go
I've lost the strength to fly away" -Forugh Farrokzad

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez. 

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests
timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Kyrie (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

"Laudamus te" -Mass Ordinary

"Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant:
Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom" -Rainer Maria Rilke

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez.

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Gloria (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

"Credo...
crucifixus...
resurrexit...
ascendit..." -Mass Ordinary

"Why will you not join me in this companionship? 
This is the conversation of being a human being, the living doubleness.
You are pure soul and made of the ground.
You are eyeshadow and the kindness in eyelight." -Rumi

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez.

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Credo (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

"Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus... Hosanna in excelsis!" -Mass Ordinary

"Why will you not join me in this companionship?
This is the conversation of being a human being, the living doubleness.
"The world is new
and you have been chosen to say this poem
because you are the one with the love bites on you." -Rumi

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez.

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Sanctus (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

"Dona nobis pacem" -Mass Ordinary

"There is a savior in these buds
O copper flowerheads
confine my womb that i may dwell within. 
i see these gardens, whom i love
i feel the sky's sweat on my face
now that these robes no longer bark
i praise abandonment." - Sonia Sanchez

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez.

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Agnus Dei (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

Matthew Peterson (b. 1984) writes music that explores frontiers of sound and expression. He has composed over sixty works commissioned and performed by orchestras, choirs, opera companies, chamber ensembles, and soloists around the world. He lives in Dalarna, Sweden.

Mass (for soprano and percussion, 2012)

composer Matthew Peterson