Year: 2022

Duration (in minutes): 12

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble

Instruments: any high voice, cello, piano

Publisher: Kim D. Sherman - Plumbers Daughter

Publisher website: kdsherman.com

Outside URL: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0BSRD61SD

Description: PROGRAM NOTE
by Kim D. Sherman
A Prairie Diary came about after playwright Darrah Cloud and I wrote a music-theater adaptation of Willa Cather’s first novel, “O Pioneers!” Our collaboration spanned over a three-year period of experimenting with putting the novel into theatrical form. One of the most challenging aspects of the project was how to use vocal music in the context of the stage production. The songs became part of a “Prairie Greek Chorus” which appears throughout the play. Many songs were tried and then rejected from the final version. It is those “rejected” songs that became the inspiration for this song cycle, although two of the songs (“Transformation Song” and “I Call Your Name”) are still used in the theatrical production. Settings of three poems by Willa Cather complete the cycle.

The material in the text evokes images and feelings of my own roots in the Midwest. I wanted to give a voice to the vastness, the sky and the land, and to give a sound to the feeling of belonging to the dream of this country. And always, these words from “O Pioneers!” rang through my thoughts as I wrote the music:

“For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.” – Willa Cather

A Prairie Diary was originally written for piano, clarinet and baritone voice. I then transposed the cycle for Allison Charney, who has sung the piano and clarinet version many times, including on a 1998 recording with Ben Loeb for the DSC label. In 2016-2017, I removed the clarinet part and created a new part for cello and restructured the order of the movements for the ARK Trio. It is included in the ARK Trio's debut recording on the Navona label.

To purchase score, please contact the composer.

Year: 2020

Duration (in minutes): 16

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: piano

Instruments: piano

Publisher: Kim D. Sherman - Plumbers Daughter

Publisher website: kdsherman.com

Description: Fifteen short pieces for solo piano, divided into four sets:

1) Quiet Poems:
WATER CIRCLES describes the ripple effect when you throw a rock into a still body of water.
A GESTURE is the lonely call to one who is not there.
NIGHT SOUNDS are those strange things you hear when everything is quiet, but not really.

2) Four Moods:
UNWINDING After a busy year of school, Annora relishes her time in the summer when she can relax, reflect, and spend time UNWINDING.
FENCE A description of the art of Fencing inspired this music.
REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS is about the image of the moon on the water.
LISTENING TO THE MOON is what I imagine it sounds like in the middle of the night.

3) Travels:
THE KITE The effort of getting the kite to go up in the air, and the dance it does once it is there.
CONVERGENCE When you come from different directions and meet up . . . somewhere.
DRIVE A road trip in the Rockies. You came around a corner, and there is a huge lake in the middle of the mountains.
UNFATHOMABLE THINGS Exploring the unknown.
DESTINATION Arriving, being where you are, being grounded at the same time as feeling where you have been.

4) Three Walks: Loop, Evaporation Zone, Bridge 2 Queens
LOOP describes a regular route I walk in Central Park. It’s the 6.2 mile perimeter of New York’s greatest jewel. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear me stop and take a stone out of my shoe.
EVAPORATION ZONE is in honor of a philosophical discussion I had during a walk with my friend on Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, home to the NORAD Bunker.
BRIDGE 2 QUEENS We met at Columbus Circle, and walked over the Queensborough Bridge Long Island City. Even though it was no longer than many other walks, it felt epic because we crossed the river and traversed from one borough to another.

To purchase this music, please contact the composer.

Year: 1999

Duration (in minutes): 9

Difficulty: High (professional)

Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players

Instruments: English horn, guitar

Publisher: Plumber's Daughter Publishing

Description: “The Vision” is a musical response to the life of the Native American warrior known as Crazy Horse. This music is inspired by descriptions of a dream that came to him when he was a young man. In it, he saw three significant events in his life – including his death.
Sheet music available for purchase from the composer/publisher. contact: KDSherman@mac.com