Longing for Home – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett Text by: Robert Mezey (b. 1935), Bea Exner Liu (1907-1997), Mohja Kahf (b. 1967), Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005), Alla Renée Bozarth Instrumentation: mezzo soprano, baritone, piano Duration: approx.  20 minutesJerusalem [c 3:30]Mother [c 4:15]Voyager Dust [c 4:00]A Letter to Marianne Moore [c 4:00]Dancing Toward the Promised Land [c 3:30] Date Written:  2018 Composer’s note: Longing for Home is a song cycle written to celebrate Source Song Festival’s fifth season. The texts all reference homecoming in various ways – the enduring wish to return to a place remembered with love and longing, as well as the uncertainty, the impossibility of doing so. “Jerusalem” – a cry of anguish echoes from the 11th century for a once-magnificent city, now in ruins, reduced to rubble. The musical influences of Jerusalem include Jewish liturgical cantillation, middle-eastern scales with their frequent augmented seconds, and word-painting – the soaring of an eagle, the excruciating stin