NicholasABooker@gmail.com (Nicholas A. Booker) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:14:00 +0000

If you would like any information on any of the works, the composers who wrote them, or the performers who played them, please contact Nicholas Booker at nicholasabooker@gmail.com

Composer Comments on Dawn

NicholasABooker@gmail.com (Nicholas A. Booker) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:13:00 +0000

Below are the poems for my piece, Daughter of the Light. The piece has a story as well as an elemental inspiration to each movement, so along with the story, the first movement was inspired by the autumn leaves. Fómhar is actually the Irish word for "Autumn". The second movement is named after the Irish Sea, which is Muir Mhanainn in Gaelic. The last movement is inspired by the Irish goddess of summer, love, and wealth, Áine.

I. Fómhar Jig

I awoke to the rising dawn

As mist lay thick on the rolling hills

And the piper played his morning song

While birds flew trees they’d rested on

It was the village festival

And hunters brought their finest meats

While shepherds ambled to the hall

With daughters dressed in shades of fall

Outside the players played their tunes

While people came from all around

To spend a cheerful afternoon

Dancing under bright festoons

The kick and stomp of dancing feet

Rustled through the greenest grass

And reds and golds of autumn leaves

Formed my childhood memories

II. Muir Mhanainn Waltz

As years passed by, I heard the sound

Of rolling waves and foaming sea,

I wondered what could yet be found

On far off shores that called to me

I found a ship to take me there

Far across the widening world

To lands with crisp and dulcet air

Off beyond the ocean’s curl

With hands upon the great backstay

Of a vessel set for silver shores

I listened to the lapping waves

And wondered what I waited for

When leagues had passed in our wide wake,

I set my feet on city streets

I could not know what road to take

Or what new trials I would meet

I sank into the bustling sea

Of faces in the shining lights

Yet found the place that was to me

The only one that could be right

And months on, in the budding spring

As I was walking down a lane

I stumbled on a lowly thing

Playing his tunes out in the rain

He whistled what I’d never heard

Yet always seemed to know so well

And though it seemed to me absurd

I was enraptured and compelled

To ask the pauper boy his name

And sit there in the rain a while

Oh, never could I be the same

If I had passed that pauper by.

The years passed by from when we met

And married in a little church,

And worries caused me to forget

The sound of leaves in the silver birch

I could not see the growing light

Or glowing of the shifting sea

When dawn came at the end of night

To set my burdened spirit free

I could not taste the strawberries

Or smell the scent of fallen rain.

Only darkness I could see

And feel my scarring, searing pain.

Below a stormy, thundering sky

I left my home and wandered out

Into the darkness of the night

As deafening rain supplied my doubt

For days I wandered aimlessly

Until I could not wander more,

My legs would not keep holding me

They were too bloody, stiff and sore

I fell into a weary sleep

Out in the boundless, rolling hills

And dreamt that I had fallen deep

Into a misty, blackened dell

I could not see my way back home

Nor did I hear a single voice

And after wandering hours alone

I knew that I was left no choice

I turned my eyes up to the sky

And whispered tired, shaking words

As tears consumed my reddened eyes

And troubling calm was all I heard

A wind blew strong upon my face,

The whelming darkness fell away

I slipped into a different place

Into the dawning of the day

And in the light I heard my name

As it resounded through the trees

For led by some cherubic aim

My love at last had come for me

III. Áine's Reel

Decades past and I went out

Into the hills I’d dreamt about

I spent my days in fruitful ways

On melodies I loved to play

And in the dusk I took my mare

And rode into the mountain air

By brooks and streams and fallen trees

That garnished my felicity

I loved my pauper most of all

And spent my nights with him enthralled

With me as I was still with him

For love’s a light that never dims

And in my dreams I saw the place

Where I awoke and saw his face

And was reminded of the tune

He played that rainy afternoon

When I had found the love I’d kept

For so long hidden and untapped

Like wine in barrels aged for years

I held it for my cavalier

And still we danced to lilting songs

That kept our cheerful spirits strong

And in our lasting reverie

Beneath the shining summer leaves

We danced and played our melodies

That set our hearts and spirits free

To love and be ourselves adored

Until we land on heaven’s shore

Lamont Flute Chamber Concert

Dawn- A New Music Concert by the Lamont Flute Studio

Composer Comments on Dawn