ETHEL SMYTH PLAYS GOLF IN LIMBO | Music and Text by Rachel J. Peters
Inspired by composer, suffragist, and avid golfer Ethel Smyth’s memoirs and critics’ reviews of her work, this concert mini-monodrama imagines her playing golf in the afterlife, surrounded by her dogs. She recounts her own experience, noting what has unfortunately remained the same in the years since her death.
VOICES: Mezzo-soprano
INSTRUMENTATION: Piano/vocal
DURATION: 9:30
WORLD PREMIERE: FETA Foundation Acoustica21 series, Miami, FL 2016
IF YOU CAN PROVE THAT I SHOULD SET YOU FREE
Music by Rachel J. Peters | Texts by Alice Duer Miller and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Settings of suffrage-era satirist Alice Duer Miller’s poems are framed by underscored excerpts from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s “We Are All Bound Up Together” speech.
VOICES: Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, and five non-singing narrators
INSTRUMENTATION: 1.1.a.sax.bari.sax.1.1/1.1.1.0/synth.perc (1)/1.1.1.1.1 OR piano/vocal
DURATION: 14 minutes
WORLD PREMIERE: Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, Spring 2019
FRONDS: THE WISDOM OF FANNY FERN | Music by Rachel J. Peters, Texts by Fanny Fern
Mini-song cycle using excerpts from Fanny Fern’s humor columns.
VOICES: Dramatic Soprano
INSTRUMENTATION: piano/vocal
DURATION: ca. 6 minutes
WORLD PREMIERE: The Walt Whitman Project, 2013
JACK’S VOCABULARY | Music by Rachel J. Peters, Texts by Jack Kelly
Settings of six of my cousin Jack’s second and third grade English homework assignments for vocal sextet.
VOICES: Soprano, Mezzo, Alto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass
INSTRUMENTATION: piano/vocal
DURATION: ca. 10 minutes
WORLD PREMIERE: SPASM, The Hartt School of Music, 2011
STRETCH (A FANTASIA) | Play by Susan Bernfield, Music by Rachel J. Peters
The “fantasia” part of Susan’s 2008 play STRETCH (a fantasia) — in which Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods observes the 2004 presidential election from her swing-state nursing home — is an imagined slate of dreams and memories that alternate with scenes of life in the nursing home. scored the fantasy bits for a small band including IBM Electric typewriter. All these years on, we are reimaginging the work: skip the nursing home, revisit the scored monologues and presto! A concert suite for this delightful and alas-still-relevant character. If you are interested in performing the play, purchase and license it separately here. Otherwise, please contact us to bring this new version to life.
CAST: 1 nonsinging actor
INSTRUMENTATION: trumpet, 2 violins, bass, and IBM Selectric
DURATION: 90 minutes (complete play with music)—concert performance duration TBD
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY: World Premiere of Original Version, The Living Theatre, 2008