Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Augusta Read Thomas
On Dickenson's 'Heroic Act'

Augusta Read Thomas is the composer of the New York Philharmonic's season's first commission, Gathering Paradise, Emily Dickinson Settings for Soprano and Orchestra, which premieres Wednesday night at Avery Fisher Hall.

"Emily Dickinson’s poems are intensely
personal, intellectual, introspective, and offer a meditation on life, death, and poetic creation; her poems share a close observation of nature as well as consideration of religious and philosophical issues, Thomas writes. "The poems used in Gathering Paradise are marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are suggestive of hope and the possibility of happiness found in art and in the observation of the natural world."

In the five connected sections of Gathering Paradise (which together run just short of 30 minutes), Thomas sets five of Dickinson’s short poems in their entirety, sometimes repeating words or phrases and interpolating expostulations.

"These poems are all about light," Thomas writes. "We start with “gleam,” “illumination,” “fuse is lit,” and work through “the Everlasting Clocks — Chime — Noon” (when, in the middle of the composition, there is an actual kind of carillon sounding orchestration to represent a clock striking 12 times). Then, at the end of the work, “Soft as the massacre of Suns,” and, finally, “Image of Light, Adieu —”. So there is a kind of cycle of light, from sunrise to sundown...or perhaps a birth to a death, the final words of the composition being “Impart — Depart —”.

Thomas (born in 1964 in New York) is Professor on the composition faculty at Northwestern University, and is on the Board of Directors of the American Music Center. She previously taught at the Eastman School of Music, and she is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (through May 2006). At the age of 33, she received tenure from the Eastman School. Her work is currently published by G. Schirmer Inc., with whom she has recently signed.

"Composing for voice is my first passion in life, and as a result the largest part of my catalogue is music for voice: solo voice, small groups of voices, small or large choirs, with and without orchestral or other kinds of accompaniments," Thomas says. "For me, the human voice — possibly the most subtle, complex, and fragile yet forceful, flexible, seductive, and persuasive carrier of musical ideas and meanings — has always been an inspiration for and influence upon my entire musical thinking."

Thomas studied at Northwestern University, Yale University and at the Royal Academy of Music. Seven years after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music, she was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM, honorary degree). In 1998 she received the Distinguished Alumni Association Award from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. In 1999, she received the Award of Merit from the President of Northwestern University.