Buddhist Rain - Friday 22 October 2010

The music we are performing was written over the past eight years, and sets poems by E. E. Cummings and Bill Manhire. These evocative (and often slightly mystifying) poems have provided us with a range of moods and emotions to play with in our musical readings of them. We hope that this concert like the poems themselves, will offer a kind of journey through the peaks and valleys of the human experiences they chart.

Someone once quipped that it was 'death that gets poets out of bed in the morning', and certainly some of Cumming's poetry dwells on the end of life. But it also explores the wonder of living and the enchantment of love. All of the poems performed are found in E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems [Liveright].

The poems by Bill Manhire selected have an earthier complexion, and the music is consequently a little grittier. Bill wrote some of the poems specifically for this ensemble. The poems are found in Bill Manhire: Collected Poems and The Victims of Lightning [both Victoria University Press].

The Cummings settings can be heard on our CD sun, moon, stars, rain. It is published by Attar Media. The Manhire settings are also available from Attar Media, on the CD Buddhist Rain.