When I Was Eight
When I Was Eight
Choral Chameleon Chorus
Vince Peterson, artistic director
Hee Sung Kim, piano
Robyn Prezioso, visual artist
Text by Robert Bode
Robert Bode, conductor
Commissioned by and dedicated to the Conservatory Singers of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Robert Bode, conductor
It was in Minneapolis for the National ACDA conference in March of 2017 when Robert Bode heard my work, “All Is,” for chorus, mezzo-soprano, viola, and piano. After the reading session, he came up to me immediately, saying: “I want you to set my poetry.” I was flattered and humbled by his response to my music, and I said: “Of course! Send me some poems!” Thus began our collaboration…!
Robert sent me a collection of poems, and this particular text—written on vacation in Marrowstone Island—captured me almost instantaneously with its associations of memory, nostalgia, wonder, and child-like discovery. It was practically brimming over with music, waiting to be given a sonic frame. “When I was eight” wears its heart on its sleeve, with fanciful pianistic flourishes requiring “Craft so dearly bought,” choral sonorities which will benefit from “the pride of small-tuned things,” and quixotic quotations “of Beethoven and Barber and Bach and Brahms.”
I dedicate this work fondly to Robert, whose poetry of ebullient energy and ecstatic enthusiasm I can only hope is faithfully mirrored in my music.
-- Dominick DiOrio, November 2017
When I Was Eight
by Robert Bode (Marrowstone Island, August 2015)
Each night I’d mount the stage alone
(a small red rug with fraying trim)
And stand before the Magnavox,
When I was eight.
I’d move my arms and lunge and leap
with cheeks aflame,
And ride volcanic waves
Of Beethoven and Barber and Bach and Brahms,
When I was eight.
I’d join the eagles in their flight
And hear the jackals call;
The stars would shudder in their sockets,
And stallions would flash in the sun!
Today I feel what knowledge brings,
and Craft, so dearly bought:
The pride of small-tuned things
And the pleasures of the fine.
But oh, I long to feel again
The wonder and the flight:
As when I’d close my eyes,
And lift my arms,
And lead the holy angels
In their Hallelujah song,
When I was eight.
© 2021 dominick diorio
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