Voyager Dust (from Longing for Home) – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett Text by: Mohja Kahf (b. 1967) Instrumentation mezzo-soprano,, piano Duration: approx. 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. “Voyager dust” is the essence of the home we carry with us, instantly recognizable by other voyagers. What a wonderful opportunity to write a musical evocation of places as far away as Beijing, Guangzhou, Damascus, Aleppo, and the challenge of creating the scene of lighthearted children’s play – running underneath a canopy of wet scarves, feeling the spray of water as they are shaken out – and then to contrast that with the somber realization that the poet is in exile, unlikely to return home anytime soon. Mohja Kahf is a Syrian-American poet, novelist, and profess