20th / 21st Century Song Collections

The poetry of Emily Dickinson is especially appealing due to the wide range of topics, diversity of mood, and peculiar imagination of the poet. The writings are reflective, passionate, witty, sensuous,

Based on the composer's lifelong affection and admiration of duets from Broadway musicals, this collection of songs likewise seeks to combine timeless, unforgettable lyric melodies and texts. Setting the

Letters from Edna presents eight letters sent by the great American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay to members of her family, friends, and business associates. The letters describe the people Millay

The title of the song cycle A World Turned Upside Down comes from an entry in "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, reflecting the sense she felt of her world being upturned when suddenly the

This collection of Argentinean tangos for either high voice or medium-low voice and piano offers a cross section of tango across the ages, from the beginnings through the Gardel era, the golden age and

Originally conceived as a set, this collection of songs is based on the writings of Willa Cather and Carl Sandburg. The Sandberg texts are all excerpted from the poem Prairie and fill in the

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) dedicated his "Cien Sonetos de Amor" to his wife, and it remains among the world's most revered collections of love poems. Among these hundred poems is the gorgeous

Emily Dickinson has her tongue firmly in her cheek in these three poems. There is serious purpose under the lyrics, but the surface is pure wordplay. She juggles the terms “forgetting” and

Composed as a wedding gift for friends, Walker chose texts that are mostly 19th-century poems, each exploring love and perpetuity from its own unique lens. Perfect as a set, though each piece works well by

This atmospheric setting of words from Shakespeare's As You Like It is sprightly and uplifting, with the singer being asked to perform with "a bit of frost and a knowing smile." Musically it

A short song cycle using an unaccompanied solo soprano to vocalize the fanciful and magical poems of E.E. Cummings with glissandi, whistling, ghostly whispered notes and long melismas drawing out the sounds

Renowned pianist, opera coach, conductor, teacher, and writer Kathleen Kelly commissioned composer Juliana Hall to set her poem "Tornado" as an art song, which was premiered by soprano Caitlin Lynch with

Patti's unexpected and often humorous experiences riding the DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) were chronicled online and eventually discovered by the composer. Inspired by Patti's pithy, sarcastic, and

Also known as the Song of the White Cheese, this song may be performed in German or with an English translation by Michael Feingold. Published here for the first time, this piece was composed in

This volume contains Heitor Villa-Lobos' music for soprano and piano taken from the editions in the Eschig catalog. The original engravings are reproduced, giving musicians a valuable record of how these

O Mistress Mine follows a narrative arc illuminating the ever-changing nature of love, from the time we first encounter it as youths to our awareness as we age of its many varying qualities.

This song is from a projected musical film created by director/writer Margaret Constantas. On the Wentloog Levels near Cardiff, two artisan shoemakers, husband and wife, have fallen on hard times. Their

A collection of four songs for high voice and piano, these 'Wing' songs are inspired by the many characters of birds portrayed in poetry and folksongs. The tiny swallow is a mournful bird, weeping in

This canticle based on texts taken from the Gospel of Luke is designed like a triptych painting. Fashioned like a visual art triptych, the "left panel" or Prologue of the piece proclaims

The text of Juliana Hall's musical setting for baritone and piano is the famous sonnet The New Colossus by American poet Emma Lazarus, written in 1883 and now inscribed on a plaque on the

Written for Jun Mo Yang, a young tenor studying in the graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard Conservatory, this piece fulfilled his class assignment to seek out repertoire from a living composer whose

Inspired by the great classical song cycles that use poetry about nature, Sara Teasdale's text provides descriptive poetry that Esenvalds sets beautifully and expressively. The phrases are short, which

A collection of seven English art songs for vocal study for high, medium, and low voices. Invocation, for high voice, sets a poem by Stephen Vincent Benet from "John Brown's Body." In the Pale

These four songs, composed in 1928, are settings of poems by Sara Teasdale published in 1924 in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, founded and edited by Harriet Monroe, was perhaps the most