Imperceptible (2005) for soprano and piano
Keiko Clark, soprano
Timothy Zerlang, piano
Recording
Composer’s website: http://www.jennibrandon.com
Biography
Jenni Brandon (b. 1977) has received a variety of commissions and awards for her music. The Wildflower Trio, for oboe, bassoon, and piano, was commissioned in 2004 by the College of Fine Arts of the University of Texas at Austin to honor the life and work of Lady Bird Johnson. Boosey & Hawkes currently publishes her piece Five Frogs for woodwind quintet on their Windependence series.
Active also as singer, conductor, and teacher, she sings with Pacific Chorale under the direction of John Alexander. She has also sung under the direction of Keith Lockhart, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Carl St. Clair, John Williams, Nicholas McGegan, and William Dehning. Jenni has appeared in concert with the Boston Pops, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, and at the Hollywood Bowl. As a choral conductor she is currently the Music Director of The Concert Singers, a community choir based in Westchester, California.
Jenni grew up in Pennsylvania where she received her B.M. Composition from West Chester University and studied composition with Robert Maggio and Larry Nelson. She received her M.M. Composition from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied with Kevin Puts and Dan Welcher. In 2001 she moved to Los Angeles, California to begin work on her DMA Composition with both Rick Lesemann and Morten Lauridsen.
She currently lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband.
Program notes
Imperceptible (2005)
Poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Japanese haiku, poetry, and art have fascinated me ever since I began visiting the Japanese Pavilion of Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The poetry and art both offer simple lines and beautiful imagery. As I searched for poetry, I found Kenneth Rexroth’s beautiful translations from his book One Hundred Poems from the Japanese graceful and sensual, but at the same time powerful and haunting.
As I began working with these poems, I found that by linking the short poems together into one large work, I could tell the story of one woman’s wait for her lover, her loss and grief, and her questioning of the delicate human heart. This piece was composed for and dedicated to soprano Keiko Clark.
