Composer’s Note:

Wes McNair’s hair-raising poem, “When the Trees Came for Her,” transforms the peace of a back-country Maine winter landscape into something malevolent, where we find a troubled woman driving through the dark on “the wrong route, the one with the ice bone down the center and no signs, even for the sharp curve she barely came out of.” The scrub-brush and trees seem to “dislodge ” one by one, and drift toward” her, asking “her to relax, opening their wide branches.” My musical setting enters into the cold terror of this scene, urgent, fast, off-kilter, dizzying, amplified with whispers, sighs, and other murmurings from the chorus. The piano and soprano solo parts are quite challenging.