Scheherazade, Op. 200, No. 3 (2026)

Program Notes:

I'm in my third year of setting the poems from Richard Siken's "Crush" and I am still struck by the immediacy of his language, the ease with which the words flow into music.

"Scheherazade" is the very first poem of the collection, immediately evoking a connection with music. This treatment of "Scheherazade" is not a literal transcription, but instead is only mostly-remembered - a song you have perhaps heard many times over the course of your life but never studied.