![]() In addition, he has written close to 300 songs. 1961) enjoys the reputation of being one of contemporary America’s most prolific and most produced opera composers, with such achievements as Moby-Dick, Great Scott, Three Decembers, and Dead Man Walking. Curiously, from a composer so iconically identified with music of a profoundly Spanish character, I found these two “art songs” almost devoid of such flavor. Here’s an example of where printed or digital texts, respectively by Antonio de Trueba and Gregorio Antonio Sierra, would have been useful. Both of his songs here involve parents, the first a mother with her daughter, the second a mother praying to Jesus that her son not become a soldier. After Franco triumphed in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), he went into exile in Argentina. ![]() I was unaware that Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) was gay, although closeted. ![]() I wanted something to honor him, juxtaposed with the passion of the speech.” Milk was like the Martin Luther King of the gay rights movement. “Moore’s goal was to create a song with an anthemic quality…. Suicide, tragically, was for many in those years believed to be the only escape from torment.Īfter an emotional “coming out” song with a text by baritone Michael Kelly, to whom the cycle was dedicated and who gave it its premiere, Moore concludes with the text of San Francisco City Council member Harvey Milk saying, “You have to give them hope.” With his election, young people had to know that they can come out, be accepted, and succeed. The second song is a recollection by Randy Robert Potts, evangelist Oral Roberts’s grandson, about his “Uncle Ronnie,” who took his own life when Randy was only seven. himself, participated in a widely diffused campaign urging young people possibly contemplating suicide to “hold on” because life does get better as a person who feels “different” if you can just get through these hard high school years and start moving out into the world. The Moore set continues with three equally inspirational numbers dating from a period, during Barack Obama’s presidency, when public figures, including B.O. It’s often hard enough even in one’s own language to discern every word that is sung, much less in other languages, and here we have quite a bit of French, Spanish, and Danish. Quite a few of them on the 90-minute recording (on two discs) require such background to fully understand what they mean and why they are included in the album, although what I found missing were the lyrics. ![]() This helpful explanation comes from program notes by Roger Pines accessible by a QR code in the CD packaging, providing informative background on the composers and the individual songs. ‘He knew the speech would be broadcast online, but he realized it could make a big difference in the world.’” On this opener to the double CD release, the lyrics derive from “a 2010 speech by Fort Worth city councilman Joel Burns-not only encouragement to bullied young people that ‘it gets better,’ but also Burns’s on coming out. They appear in the song “Hold On,” the first of four titles in a 2011 cycle called Love Remained by American composer Ben Moore (b. “It gets better…much, much better.” Such are the opening lyrics heard on tenor Eric Ferring’s CD No Choice But Love: Songs of the LGBTQ+ Community. ![]()
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