Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
As taken from his website, "Avid vocal composer, Matthew Recio recently finished his post as Vanguard emerging opera composer with Chicago Opera Theatre. During his residency he developed operas with librettists Royce Vavrek (2021) and Stephanie Fleischmann (2020). The concert presentation of his work with Royce, “The Puppy Episode” was premiered in March of 2021 through the Chicago Opera Theater and is pleased to work on a co-production with Opera Columbus and Oberlin Conservatory for the staged premiere."
This is Recio's breathtaking 4-movement work for SSAATTBB chorus and crotales, "Holdfast". This piece explores the phenomenon of touch starvation (meaning a lack of human contact, also known as "skin hunger") and its effects on our bodies and minds.
COMPOSER: Matthew Recio
CONDUCTOR: A.J. Keller
CHOIR: Stare at the Sun
POET: Robin Beth Schaer
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - I. The Dead Are For Morticians
3:29 - II. He Tells Me
5:45 - III. Let Her Pretend
7:40 - IV. If I Held Her
TEXT:
Holdfast (Robin Beth Schaer)
(I.) The dead are for morticians & butchers
to touch. Only a gloved hand. Even my son
will leave a grounded wren or bat alone
like a hot stove. When he spots a monarch
in the driveway he stares. It’s dead,
I say, you can touch it. The opposite rule:
butterflies are too fragile to hold
alive, just the brush of skin could rip
a wing. He skims the orange & black whorls
with only two fingers, the way he learned
to feel the backs of starfish & horseshoe crabs
at the zoo, the way he thinks we touch
all strangers.
(II.) I was sad to be born, he tells me,
because it means I will die. I once loved someone
I never touched.
(III.) We played records & drank
coffee from chipped bowls, but didn’t speak
of the days pierced by radiation. A friend
said: Let her pretend. She needs one person
who doesn’t know.
(IV.) If I held her, I would have left bruises,
if I undressed her, I would
have seen scars, so we never touched
& she never had to say she was dying.
We should hold each other more
while we are still alive, even if it hurts.
People really die of loneliness, skin hunger
the doctors call it. In a study on love,
baby monkeys were given a choice
between a wire mother with milk
& a wool mother with none. Like them,
I would choose to starve & hold the soft body.
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
As taken from his website, "Avid vocal composer, Matthew Recio recently finished his post as Vanguard emerging opera composer with Chicago Opera Theatre. During his residency he developed operas with librettists Royce Vavrek (2021) and Stephanie Fleischmann (2020). The concert presentation of his work with Royce, “The Puppy Episode” was premiered in March of 2021 through the Chicago Opera Theater and is pleased to work on a co-production with Opera Columbus and Oberlin Conservatory for the staged premiere."
This is Recio's breathtaking 4-movement work for SSAATTBB chorus and crotales, "Holdfast". This piece explores the phenomenon of touch starvation (meaning a lack of human contact, also known as "skin hunger") and its effects on our bodies and minds.
COMPOSER: Matthew Recio
CONDUCTOR: A.J. Keller
CHOIR: Stare at the Sun
POET: Robin Beth Schaer
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - I. The Dead Are For Morticians
3:29 - II. He Tells Me
5:45 - III. Let Her Pretend
7:40 - IV. If I Held Her
TEXT:
Holdfast (Robin Beth Schaer)
(I.) The dead are for morticians & butchers
to touch. Only a gloved hand. Even my son
will leave a grounded wren or bat alone
like a hot stove. When he spots a monarch
in the driveway he stares. It’s dead,
I say, you can touch it. The opposite rule:
butterflies are too fragile to hold
alive, just the brush of skin could rip
a wing. He skims the orange & black whorls
with only two fingers, the way he learned
to feel the backs of starfish & horseshoe crabs
at the zoo, the way he thinks we touch
all strangers.
(II.) I was sad to be born, he tells me,
because it means I will die. I once loved someone
I never touched.
(III.) We played records & drank
coffee from chipped bowls, but didn’t speak
of the days pierced by radiation. A friend
said: Let her pretend. She needs one person
who doesn’t know.
(IV.) If I held her, I would have left bruises,
if I undressed her, I would
have seen scars, so we never touched
& she never had to say she was dying.
We should hold each other more
while we are still alive, even if it hurts.
People really die of loneliness, skin hunger
the doctors call it. In a study on love,
baby monkeys were given a choice
between a wire mother with milk
& a wool mother with none. Like them,
I would choose to starve & hold the soft body.
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
![Caroline Shaw — Plan & Elevation (2015) [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eIEI80LfaMk/mqdefault.jpg "Caroline Shaw — Plan & Elevation (2015) [w/ score]
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, violinist, and singer Caroline Shaws Plan & Elevation for string quartet. Shaw writes in the program notes:
I have always loved drawing the architecture around me when traveling, and some of my favorite lessons in musical composition have occurred by chance in my drawing practice over the years. While writing a string quartet to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks, I returned to these essential ideas of space and proportion — to the challenges of trying to represent them on paper. The title, Plan & Elevation, refers to two standard ways of representing architecture — essentially an orthographic, or “bird’s eye,” perspective (“plan”), and a side view which features more ornamental detail (“elevation”). This binary is also a gentle metaphor for one’s path in any endeavor — often the actual journey and results are quite different (and perhaps more elevated) than the original plan.
COMPOSER: Caroline Shaw
STRING QUARTET: Attacca Quartet
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - Introduction
0:08 - I. The Ellipse
4:09 - II. The Cutting Garden
7:07 - III. The Herbaceous Border
10:44 - IV. The Orangery
12:28 - V. The Beech Tree
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
#scorefollower #contemporaryclassical #classicalmusic")
![Paul Cantrell — The Broken Mirror of Memory (2011) [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fEXLrRnaYbU/mqdefault.jpg "Paul Cantrell — The Broken Mirror of Memory (2011) [w/ score]
This is Paul Cantrell’s 4-movement work for bass clarinet and piano, “The Broken Mirror of Memory.” Cantrell writes:
“Entanglement, soliloquy, tango, flight: each movement poses a problem from which the next unfolds. Themes continually resurface, transformed, as the music reinvents its own past – the endless process Gabriel García Márquez described as ‘piecing together the broken mirror of memory from so many scattered shards.’ The coda gathers everything together, grappling, burning down – and then, from the embers, a simple benediction emerges, present all along, now laid bare. We discover in retrospect that the music’s destination has always been its source. ‘The Broken Mirror of Memory’ was chosen as the winner of the International Clarinet Association’s Composition Competition in 2012.”
COMPOSER: Paul Cantrell
BASS CLARINET: Pat OKeefe
PIANO: Paul Cantrell
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - Introduction
I. Entanglement
II. Soliloquy
III. Tango
IV. Flight
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.")
