HCP 29 Sarah Rimkus on How to find texts to set to choral music (Part 1)
Dr. Sarah Rimkus has an incredible career in the choral arts from winning tons of competitions to studying with Morten Lauridsen, Phillip Cook, and Paul Mealor. In this episode, we get to discuss the thing that most programs don’t teach you: Finding texts and working with texts to set to choral music. Her experience in finding and curating texts, from the research process to selection and setting.
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In this episode, you will learn:
- Sarah’s journey to composition and choral music
- How being a pianist guided her to composition while trying to come up with her own pieces
- How she ended up doing a Master and Doctorate in choral composition in Aberdeen
- How does Sarah look for texts?
- Where does she start searching?
- The process of finding meaningful texts to set to music
- The challenges to finding texts and how important it is for the composition process to choose the right text
- Sarah’s Pet Peeves when in come to text setting
- How Sarah stays open to experiences in order to find texts
- How she constantly finds text sources in documentaries
- The ways we can break the “It all had been done before” way of thinking
- Her experience with Derek Bermel on innovation and finding new ways to express in music composition
- How we are our own mixing bowl (Food example!)
- The themes that Sarah gravitates towards
- The Esoterics commissions and process to find the text that was related to secular requiems
- Uprooted – The Esoterics, Eric Banks.
- How composers don’t have to limit themselves to be musically creative but to stay open to possibilities and manipulate the text (repetitions, or combining interviews, etc)
- How composers need to practice text setting and text searching
- Examples of composers and pieces from where Sarah has learned lots of text setting techniques
- How to see the text beyond its meaning but also its sounds (vowels, consonants, etc).
- How long did uprooted take to complete and details about the process
- Oh, God Thy Sea – The Esoterics, Eric Banks.
Share it with me
- Where do you find your texts?
Links mentioned in the show:
- Sarah Rimkus Website
- See-a-dot Music Publishing: Sarah Rimkus Profile
- Musicspoke – Sarah Rimkus Profile
- https://www.abdn.ac.uk/music/people/sarah-rimkus-528.php
- https://www.abdn.ac.uk/music/
- https://music.usc.edu/departments/classical-performance-studies/comp/
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Produced by Carlos Cordero.
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Hugs,
C.
