A bird came down the walk (2011)

Written for and performed by Musae (www.musae.org), a women's vocal ensemble, at the Blue Skies, Bluegrass, and Beyond concert in Berkeley and San Francisco.

lyrics

Poem by Emily Dickinson

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.

Program Notes

(written in 2023)

A bird came down the walk holds a special place in my heart. Featuring the poetry of Emily Dickinson, it emulates some of the choral music I was singing in undergrad at Santa Clara University with dramatic shifts of mood, fractured text setting, and ornaments that land on glittering pandiatonic clusters. Originally premiered by San Francisco’s Musae, at the time led by Ryan Brandau, it is the first professional commission I ever received as a budding composer. Like most American children, I was introduced to Emily Dickinson’s poetry through an English class in high school. When it was time to memorize poetry, I chose Emily Dickinson because her mysterious life intrigued me almost as much as her beautiful prose. Being from New Mexico, few things felt more foreign to me than 19th century New England, but her quietly rebellious nature stood out to me. Before I ever started working with living poets and librettists, I would draw on poems that I had memorized years before. It’s simple in premise: the speaker is watching a bird, which eats a worm, drinks dew and hops out of the way of a beetle. She offers a crumb, but it takes to the skies and disappears, rowing himself softer home, as though he were a boat in the ocean. Hearing this piece reminds me of being in undergrad, with all the time in the world to sit in a park, enjoy watching wildlife, and let my imagination run wild.

-        Nicolás Lell Benavides

credits

released May 20, 2011
Musae is:

Ryan Brandau (artistic director)
Sabrina Adler
Amy Cohen Fickenscher
Kirstin Cummings
Amy Hayes
Michela Macfarlane
Lauren Hoover-Gordon
Katie Innes
Joyce Lin-Conrad
Valerie Moy
Colleen O'Hara
Abby Ramsden
Katherine Robinson

Recording done by:
Bob Shumaker

www.musae.org