KITE SONG (2017)
for unison or 2-part children's choir
Text by Amy Lowell
Duration: ca. 3'
Composed for Dorothy Preston and the Caroline Elementary School 5th Grade Chorus
PROGRAM NOTES:
In Amy Lowell’s poem “Dreams in War Time,” the image of the kite can be seen to symbolize hope and happiness in the face of World War I, during which Lowell wrote the poem. Kite Song (2017) attempts to catch the hopeful, or even stubborn, optimism of the poem’s speaker, who flies the kite in spite of the dark clouds looming in the sky. The piece’s bittersweet tone alludes to the end of Lowell’s poem, in which the speaker continues to walk on, even after the lightning strikes the kite down.
TEXT:
Watching it flash against the concave of the sky.
My friends pointed at the clouds;
They begged me to take in my kite.
But I was happy
Seeing the mirror shock of it
Against the black clouds.
-Amy Lowell, “Dreams in War Time,” lines 59-71
I had made a kite,
On it I had pasted golden stars
And white torches,
And the tail was spotted scarlet like a tiger-lily,
And very long.
I flew my kite,
And my soul was contented