Idyll (2019)

Idyll was written for Brandon Coleman as part of The American Opera Project’s Composers & the Voice program, where it was workshopped in fall 2019. The author of the text, Siegfried Sassoon, is best known for his war poetry. Yet, Idyll does not deal specifically with war. Rather, it uses pastoral imagery to capture the narrator’s intense desire to be reunited with a loved one who has passed on. The identity of this longed for person is left unspecified—perhaps a family member or friend, perhaps a war companion, perhaps his first love. That vagueness and the subdued tone of the poem create a powerful, poignant sense of loss and desire, which inspired the understated musical setting.