Portrait of Detention (on a poem by E.J. Campbell)
for soprano and 3 sound files


Stereo realization of a performance:  Helen Pridmore, soprano

To perform the work, download the Score, the file for CD1, and the file for CDs 2 and 3 (CD2 and CD3 are identical). The performer sings her part in sync with CD1, which is to be played over a PA or sound system that is high quality.  CD2 is started one beat (about one second) after CD 1 and CD3 is started one beat (about one second) after CD2, so that the CDs are in imitation roughly a beat apart.  CDs 2 and three should be played on smaller stereos such as "boom boxes" or CD alarm clocks.  These  CD players should be behind the audience to the far left and right.  Assistants may be needed to start these "ambient" CDs.  CDs 2 and 3 contain very few of the percussive sounds that CD1 does. 

Score
CD1
CD2
CD3

Program notes

Eric Jason Campbell (J.) and I became friends in high school.  He is one of the few friends from high school that I manage to keep up with.  He is a brilliant writer now living in Nashville.  His current project is a blog about Alabama football (http://bamareport.blogspot.com).    I am serious when I say it is one of the most elegantly written things you will read on the internet.  How one can allude to Rilke's object-poem in a post-season review is beyond me, but J. defies.

The poem, Portrait of Detention, is from a collection that makes up Campbell's Master's Thesis.  The poems are so beautiful, honest and touching, yet formally rigorous.  The craftsmanship is amazing considering how naturally these poems flow off the page and into your mind.  J.'s poetry defies being set to music in that it is very prose-like.  Though most of J.'s poetry is metered, the meter is not forcefully conspicuous.  One reason for choosing this poem from the collection is its greater presence of meter.  Also, it is very entertaining.

Since the poem is reflective, yet not in first person, it is difficult to present from the voice of a  "character."  So I thought it best to present the images of the poem in the way they might flow through the mind.  If we think of different parts of an auditorium being different parts of the mind, or ways that the mind processes information, it would make sense to have an idea enter at the front of the room, then drift to other parts of the room where it becomes a different kind of information.  This is accomplished by (loosely) synchronising 3 recordings in different parts of the room.