Near Odessa – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett Text by: Patricia Kirkpatrick Instrumentation: SSAA and piano Duration: Approx. 4:00 minutes Date Written:  2013 Composer’s note: The piano carries us along while the voices paint the scenes, from birdsong to gentle wind, from boarded-up storefronts to wheat ready for harvest, encapsulating both the simplicity and the enduring beauty of the everyday images in Patricia Kirkpatrick’s poem about journeying through rural western Minnesota."Near Odessa" was written for Bella Voce, a women's choir based in Reno, Nevada, and conducted by Jennifer Tibben. The poem is from a recent volume by Minneapolis writer Patricia Kirkpatrick, written during a time when she was making frequent car trips through the western Minnesota landscape to the tiny town of Odessa. The images of golden fields, clattering harvest machinery, the far-off cry of geese, the hum of tires on the highway and the waves on the river, all are fodder for sound pictures.– Carol Barnett text Near the end of