Ellis II
mezzo-soprano, cello, and piano
(2019)

Text: Ewa Chrusciel
Language: English
Duration: 6 minutes

Commissioned by White Snake Projects, Sing Out Strong competition

Premiered August 2019
Boston MA

Composer’s Note

I am a child of an immigrant, and the story of my family’s migration to the United States is one that has been slowly unpacked and uncovered as I learn more about my cultural heritage and ask to hear stories and memories from my family. While my familial journey feels incredibly personal and specific to our story, I know that in many ways, ours is just like the millions of families who have been put in a position where they had to choose whether to risk everything by leaving, or risk everything by staying.

Ewa Chrusciel’s text “Ellis II” catalogs the very real things that one might carry to a new home, settled alongside the intangible weights and burdens born by so many: boxes, bibles, candlesticks, and sewing machines, but also “they carry the distance from what they love the most.” The voice, piano, and cello constantly circle around one another, lining up for brief moments and dissipating again. Time is manipulated to meet the text, creating moments of intense forward momentum alongside hitches or stumbles as the music slows down. A sparse but persistent knock accompanies throughout, like the insistence of one foot stepping in front of the other. The piece ends as it began, but with different material; like a new cycle could be picked up in the closing ideas of the current story.

Text

(adapted from a poem by Ewa Chrusciel)
They carried boxes and bibles,
blue barrels of sadness,
and pins and buttons.
They carried bed spreads and pillows,
And “beygals” and barrels of pickles,
And the Book of Common Prayer.
They carried voids and maps.
They carried comforters, candlesticks and crucifixes.
They carried goose feathers, rolling pins, vowels and consonants.
We carried our children.

We carried hand-painted Easter eggs, luminous dark duende,
A honeymoon dress and sewing machines.
They carry accordions and fears,
And spices and mangled boards,
And donkey shoes for luck.
And tears, and intersections:
They carry the distance from what they love the most.

They carry their grief into one hundred folds of grief.
They carry their hopes into one hundred folds of hope.