Chamber Music
Before the Hapless Stars is based on the poems of British poet Wilfred Owen written during WWI.
In this piece Semro takes us to the trenches where we find a poet scribbling whilst bombs drop. We then delve into the mind of the poet-solider as he is haunted by a scene he witnessed on the battlefield — a man seeming to drown in air because he couldn’t get his gas mask on in time. But the horrific sense of loss, gives way to the inexorable march of war.
Before the Hapless Stars
Composed Feb-Jun 2024
6 min
for clarinet, violin, cello, & piano
Let It Sound
Composed Jun-July 2024
6min
for flute, violin, & bassoon
Premiered: August 9, 2024 at the Night Market in Peterborough, NH
This piece was a commission for the Night Market in Peterborough, NH on the theme of the 90s Mixtape.
Program Notes:
Semro still has some of the mixtapes that she made back in the 90s, and the fond memories of making, receiving, and listening to those tapes were the foundation for this piece. But as she did some research into mixtapes she came upon the idea that mixtapes were a way to say to someone “I see you, and I want you to see me.” This second idea, that giving someone a mixtape was like saying, “this is who I am and I want you to know me,” became the genesis of the journey we take in this piece.
The piece follows a girl on the threshold of adulthood who knows who she is and who she wants to be as well as knowing the beauty and the sorrow of the world. She’s ready to show her true self to the world as she heads off into the universe to find, in the words of the poet Kim Park, “worlds to be ravenously lived upon.”
The title of this piece, Let It Sound, comes from a quote from George Eliot, “Let the music which can take possession of our frame and fill the air with joy for us, sound once more.”