The Mother Trees (partial)
SSSSAAAA choir
(2022)

Text: attributed to the author
Language: Latvian and English
Duration: 7 minutes

Premiere: February 2023
Mägi Ensemble
Cincinnati OH

Additional performances in Laulasmaa, Estonia (2024)
Seattle, WA (2024)

Composer’s Note

Imagine you’re walking in the woods, and you come to a clearing. You stand still, you take it in; your environment is both dense and open; it is full of small details and a wide, cohesive expanse. It is quiet, insulated, but as you spend time in the space your ears adjust to hear a series of sounds whirring, always in motion. It is grand and wild and still and strong: a protection of trees.

The Mother Trees is composed to be an observational or world-building piece, purposely lacking a large-scale, formal momentum. In its place, the sonic world slowly opens to reveal vignettes of motion before dispersing back out again.

The piece was built with the unique ecosystem of a vocal ensemble in mind, a way for singers to calibrate with one another and to depend on each other in a deeply intentional and responsive way; the sonic world of the piece unfolds as a series of individual contributions which rely on the interplay of single gestures to create the work’s wider sound palette. Just as the individual trees stand together to become the forest, The Mother Trees anchors its effect in the work of the individual voice as part of the larger workings of the ensemble.  

I am grateful to the Mägi Ensemble for their time and attention with this new piece, the ways in which they breathe specific and deep life into it, and for their unending support of Baltic women making music.

*The Mother Trees was commissioned by the Mägi Ensemble for their Insight Performance at the ACDA National Conference, titled Nature’s Song: Resistance Through Singing in the Baltic Region. It is the first part of a larger project, in progress for the next five years.