Grandmother as Scylla

Composer's Note:

An a cappella choral setting of a poem by Jeri Theriault, from her collection “Self-Portrait as Homestead.” It is a meditation on the invisibility of growing old (“this face unseen”) and the voracious hunger that never goes away, “monstrous craving for whatever I could swallow,” expressed through murmured speaking as well as singing. The piece is written with good amateur or college singers in mind—music that will stretch their musical muscles, while sticking to fairly straightforward rhythms, avoiding awkward interval skips, and including plenty of unison and octave passages.