Teasdale Songbook (2008)

"A Forest that is a Desert" was commissioned by Choral Arts Initiative for the 2019 PREMIERE|Project Festival. The work sets three texts written by Kendra Preston Leonard specifically for this composition.

When I first received the CAI commission, I looked through a number of Kendra’s text and was drawn to her lovely work “My mother is a poem by Yeats,” which expresses the profound grief of watching a loved one succumb to dementia. Full of ideas, I texted to ask if she would be open to me setting it. She was thrilled - but another composer already had secured the rights to set the poem!

I resigned myself to choosing another text, but couldn’t get the first poem of my head enough to find something that resonated strongly. After some brainstorming, Kendra generously agreed to write a companion text exploring similar themes. Within a couple days, she sent three new poems written in memory of her mother, hoping that one might be a good fit. I loved all three and was particularly drawn to them as a set.

The resulting work, "A Forest that is a Desert", uses traditional choral writing, coloristic vocal effects, and indeterminacy to bring to life Kendra’s evocative words. The music is intended to reflect the mental effects of dementia on those who suffer from it and also express the complex emotions felt by loved ones watching that decline.

This performance is by the Ohio University Singers at the Society of Composers Inc. Region V Conference in Nov. 2023.

Society of Composers, Inc. Region V Conference 2023

A Forest That Is A Desert

Iseult Speaks is an extended song cycle for mezzo-soprano based on a retelling of the Tristan/Iseult myth. For those of you who might not be familiar with the story, the basic outline—and there are many variations on this skeleton—is that Tristan is supposed to bring Iseult to marry his uncle, but on the way they fall in love, usually because of a potion they accidentally ingest. Portrayals of Iseult range from passive cypher to tragic heroine to wanton seductress, but she is almost always cast as a one-dimensional accessory to Tristan.

Elizabeth Hamilton’s evocative and provocative poems reexamine the legend from Iseult’s point of view, here somewhat omniscient and shaded with a modern sensibility that links the tale to contemporary experiences. The text touches on questions of gender roles, societal pressure, and personal power as the narrator contemplates her life, rages against the unfairness of fate, wallows in memories of physical affection, condemns Tristan for his inaction, and vacillates between confidence, insecurity, hope, and despair.

This is the sixth of 13 movements. The work exists in two versions: one for piano accompaniment and the other for singer plus 12 instrumentalists.

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Iseult Speaks: This is What I Know About Choice

Sleeping Standing Up was written for the CUNY Contemporary Music Ensemble in the spring of 2012. It was inspired by the poem of the same name by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop’s brief four stanzas depict a surreal dreamworld filled with fleeting scenes that lead, smoothly but incongruously, one to the next, ending up with a sense of nostalgic longing (tempered by an undertone of cynicism) for a goal never quite reached.  The work uses a similar instrumentation to Messiaen's "Oiseaux Exotiques".

Sleeping Standing Up

Jessica Rudman’s music has been presented across the USA and abroad on festivals such as the Omaha Symphony New Music Symposium, Composers Now, June in Buffalo, and the IAWM International Congress. Honors include winning the 2013 Boston Metro Opera’s Advocacy Award, the 2012 NewMusic@ECU Orchestra Composition Competition, and the 2012 College Music Society National Convention Student Composition Award.  Ms. Rudman has taught at Central Connecticut State University, The Hartt School, and Baruch College.  She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center, as an Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellow.

Iseult Speaks: This is What I Know About Choice

Jessica Rudman

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