Portland Youth Philharmonic To Premiere Jessica Meyer's 'Because I Will Not Despair' With In Mulieribus

On Friday, May 12, 2023 at 7:30pm at St. Philip Neri Church and Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 7:30pm at Lewis & Clark College, the Portland Youth Philharmonic's (PYP) chamber orchestra Camerata PYP and professional female vocal octet In Mulieribus will perform the world premiere of Jessica Meyer's Because I Will Not Despair, featuring the poetry of Portland poet Alicia Jo Rabins.

Jessica Meyer's passionate musicianship radiates accessibility and emotional clarity. She dedicates the new work to anyone who needs a reminder of feeling empowered, "In a time when women are still being questioned and devalued on a daily basis, I dedicate this work to anyone who needs to hear these words right now."

She recalled the vivid memories of her encounter with Alicia Jo Rabins for the first time, "It was on a plane ride home from Portland in 2013 when I wrote my third looper piece, and after that the flood gates swung open and I knew I was supposed to be a composer. On that very trip, I met Alicia Jo Rabins, a cool violinist/poet/singer/songwriter that I somehow knew would be part of my life down the line. Fast forward five years and I am using some of her poetry, alongside other fierce female living poets, to create my first evening-length show, And She. Fast forward another five years, and her words are the basis of this work."

Sharing about her inspiration behind the new work, Meyer says, "I really resonate with the perspective Alicia writes from: being a woman, a mother, a wife, a community builder, a spiritual being, and a creator. Her imagery is already visceral, so it made my job easy to set her words to music. Interestingly, I have been in the midst of my own active healing since last summer, so setting this particular text at this juncture was quite timely and indeed very cathartic."

Performance Details

Friday, May 12, 2023 at 7:30pm
Portland Youth Philharmonic & In Mulieribus Premiere Because I Will Not Despair
St. Philip Neri Church | Portland, OR
Tickets: $30 (General Admission)
Link: https://portlandyouthphil.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/events/a0S7V00000UfXHRUA3

Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 7:30pm
Portland Youth Philharmonic & In Mulieribus Premiere Because I Will Not Despair
Evans Music Center at Lewis & Clark College | Portland, OR
Tickets: $30 (General Admission)
Link: https://portlandyouthphil.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/events/a0S7V00000UfXHRUA3

Program:
Jessica Meyer - Because I Will Not Despair (2022) [World Premiere]
Kareen Roustom - Hurry to the Light (2019) [West Coast Premiere]

David Hattner, PYP Musical Director and conductor
Jessica Meyer, composer
Camerata PYP
In Mulieribus

Selected poems by Alicia Jo Rabins:

TOWSON / ATHENS
I can't tell whether I'm healing myself or breaking myself.
Whether I'm in Ancient Greece or the suburbs of Baltimore.
Whether I'm my grandmother or my five-year-old daughter.
I no longer think a mother is here to heal her daughter
I think we are all here to heal each other.
And ourselves.
And sometimes healing looks like breaking.

PROLOGUE
And so it was that I came to understand what and who I was
The rain fell around me on all sides,
Lives blossomed and shriveled, I watched babies grow into old women
I was myself, and more than myself, all at once.
There were many like me. So many.
What I had was not rare. It was as old as seaweed.
But not all of my sisters knew what they were.
What they carried.
What they knew.
The names beneath our names:
Innanna.
Ishtar.
Diana.
Goddess.
Priestess.

HUMAN ERROR
If the cathedral must burn,
Then praise God it burns
Due to human error and not
Human cruelty which is so
Plentiful these days
And maybe always has been.
May I love you in all

Your human error,
May you love me

In mine. Together we make
A cathedral of the simplest
Sunset. We hold each other,
Faces illuminated by the flames.

BECAUSE
Because
Because I
Because I will not
Because I will not despair
Because I will not despair I
Because I will not despair I resist.

I resist. I resist. I resist. I resist.
...sometimes healing looks like breaking.

About Jessica Meyer

Jessica Meyer is an award-winning composer and violist whose passionate musicianship radiates accessibility and emotional clarity. Her first composer/performer portrait album, Ring Out (Bright Shiny Things, 2019) debuted at #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart, where "knife-edge anticipation opens on to unexpected, often ecstatic musical realms, always with a personal touch and imaginatively written for the instruments" (Gramophone Magazine).

Her first Symphonic Band piece was recently premiered by the President's Own Marine Band (first at Strathmore then the NY premiere in Carnegie Hall), and her orchestral works have been performed by the Phoenix, North Carolina, Charlotte, and Vermont Symphonies, the Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, at Tanglewood in Seiji Ozawa Hall, and all around the country as part of Carnegie Hall's nationwide Link Up Program. She was the winner of the 2nd Annual Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer's Award to write a piece for the Bangor Symphony, and a winner of Chamber Music America's Commissioning Program Award to write for the Argus Quartet. Recent chamber/solo premieres included a work for CityMusic Cleveland, musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra, and for the Five Borough Songbook.

Meyer's compositions viscerally explore the wide palette of emotionally expressive colors available to each instrument while using traditional and extended techniques inspired by her varied experiences as a contemporary and period instrumentalist. Since embarking on her composition career eight years ago, premieres have included performances by acclaimed vocal ensembles Roomful of Teeth and Vox Clamantis, the St. Lawrence String Quartet as the composer in residence at Spoleto Festival USA, the American Brass Quintet, PUBLIQuartet, cellist Amanda Gookin for her Forward Music Project, Sybarite 5, NOVUS NY of Trinity Wall Street, a work for A Far Cry commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, The Juilliard School for a project with the Historical Performance Program, and by the Lorelei Ensemble for a song cycle that received the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America.

As a solo performer, Meyer is internationally renowned for her use of a single simple loop pedal to create a virtuosic orchestral experience with her viola and voice. Drawing from wide-ranging influences which include Bach, Brahms, Delta blues, Flamenco, Indian Raga, and Appalachian fiddling, Meyer's music takes audience members on a journey through joy, anxiety, anger, bliss, torment, loneliness and passion. Her solo shows have been featured at iconic venues such as BAMcafé, Joe's Pub, and Symphony Space in NYC, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, in Paris at Sunset Sunside, in addition to venues in Singapore, Switzerland, Vietnam, the Emirates and beyond. At home with many different styles of music and an ardent collaborator, Meyer can regularly be seen premiering her chamber works, creating with dancer/choreographer Caroline Fermin, performing on Baroque viola, improvising with jazz musicians, or collaborating with other composer-performers.

Jessica Meyer is equally known for her inspirational work as an educator, where she empowers musicians with networking, communication, teaching, and entrepreneurial skills so they can be the best advocates for their own careers. Her workshops have been featured at The Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music, for the Teaching Artists of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Manhattan School of Music, the Longy School of Music, New York University, the Chamber Music America Conference, and at various universities around the country. Meyer has conducted hundreds of workshops for students and adults for Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Caramoor, the Little Orchestra Society, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Currently, she is most passionate about getting musicians of all ages off the page to activate their own creativity, improvise, and awaken their own inner composer - which in turn makes them better performers. In addition to teaching virtual workshops, her most recent engagements have been for the Moab Music Festival, the National Youth Orchestra of Carnegie Hall, and for the North Carolina Chamber Music Institute. For the past several years, she launched a Teen Composer Intensive at New England Music Camp so that teens of all abilities can develop their craft, amass recordings for their portfolio, and connect with both professional and student performers. This summer, she will serve as the Composer in Residence for the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival and lead their Emerging Composer Program. Learn more at www.jessicameyermusic.com.

Photo Credit: Dario Acosta

To post a comment, you must register and login.