Three Jacobson Songs
Michael Wittgraf
About this work:
I had the privilege of meeting Terry Jacobson, an organic farmer and sustainable agriculture advocate, in 1999 at the Grand Forks, North Dakota Unitarian Universalist Fellowship where he and his wife Janet spoke about organic farming. Their passion for the subject was overwhelming. When he read some of his poems, I was overcome with a tremendous desire to set them to music. His poetry is powerful, visceral, sonorous, and earthy. The organic farmer’s connection to the earth is at once intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and parental. It would serve us well to listen to the unaffected wisdom of Terry and those like him.
The songs amplify and clarify the text by closely observing its meaning, meter, sentence structures, sounds, and phrasing. The music works carefully with the text, because poetry as powerful as Terry’s can only be diminished by careless musical composition.
Year composed: 2000
Duration: 00:13:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 Soprano