Welcome to
LYNX’s First Annual
Chicago Fundraiser
at Guild Row
Proudly sponsored by:
Megan and Daniel Moore
Caitleen Kahn and Zachary Kaplan
Elizabeth and Kevin Madsen
Heather and Charles Kahn
And two anonymous sponsors
Program At A Glance:
2. Performance by Artistic Director, Florence Mak, and LYNX baritone, Samuel James Dewese
3. Performance by LYNX soprano, Olivia Doig, and pianist, Florence Mak
4. Presentation from Amplify Series Advisory Council member Mitchell Robins
5. Words from Composition of a City co-creators, Olivia Doig and Aasha Francis
7. Closing by Chair of the Board Robyn El Kay
Program will begin at 6:45 CT and last approximately 40 minutes
LYNX 2022-23 composers and performing artists pose for a picture on a beautiful Chicago day. From left: Corinne Klein, Matthew Recio, Shane Scott Cook, Florence Mak, Paul Novak, Pauline Tan, Samuel James Dewese, Veena Akama-Makia (not pictured, Eugenia Cheng)
LYNX staff look forward to welcoming you to Guild Row! From left: Caitleen Kahn, Florence Mak, Michelle Ravitsky, Quinn Middleman.
1. Introduction
Introducing the 2022-23 Season:
Inspired by:
Painting by Sofia Ghassaei
Bio: I'm a 19 year old minimally-speaking apraxic poet with synesthesia. I tend to write about themes others will really understand, like sorrow, gratitude and love, seen through the honest tint of autism. I yearn to show the world my soul.
In the Night Garden (Sofia Ghassaei):
Hot days a memory/Flowers awaken/Gone are the prying eyes/Of old women/Plucking fingers/Of many children/With small dogs
Now is the hour/To dance/To remembered songs of day/The harmony of/Sunshine and dew/To remembered ecstasy/Of a lover’s kiss/The bees and laughing birds/Yes, those birds and bees
An explosion of colors/Only witnessed by/Stars and lovely moon/In the night garden/Flowers awaken/To live their/Wild, beautiful lives
2. Performance by LYNX baritone, Samuel James Dewese, and Artistic Director, Florence Mak
Snapshots of Every Voice
Snapshots of Every Voice celebrates what the performers of art song want to share through their music.
Programs in this series showcase a glimpse at the diversity and richness of art song repertoire. The concerts are never the same twice, and allow us a glimpse at the music that deeply moves our performers.
From Samuel James Dewese:
I chose these two songs specifically because they each embody much of what I love about art song as a whole. Each song is its own very particular world from the moment the piano begins, and when I join to sing that world is realized in even greater detail. Musica proibita and Funeral Blues are very different, but they both have the hallmarks of what makes song immensely fun for me: a great story told by piano and voice, exciting and colorful words, and a chance to connect on a personal level that allows the performance to be more immediate for me and for those who hear it.
Musica proibita, Op. 5
Composer: Stanislao Gastaldon
Text: “Flick-Flock”
Ogni sera di sotto al mio balcone
Sento cantar una canzone d'amore,
Più volte la ripete un bel garzone
E battere mi sento forte il core.
Oh quanto è dolce quella melodia!
Oh com' è bella, quanto m' è gradita!
Ch'io la canti non vuol la mamma mia:
Vorrei saper perché me l'ha proibita?
Ella non c'è ed io la vo' cantare
La frase che m'ha fatto palpitare:
Vorrei baciare i tuoi capelli neri,
Le labbra tue e gli occhi tuoi severi,
Vorrei morir con te, angel di Dio,
O bella innamorata tesor mio.
Qui sotto il vidi ieri a passeggiare,
E lo sentiva al solito cantar:
Vorrei baciare i tuoi capelli neri,
Le labbra tue e gli occhi tuoi severi!
Stringimi, o cara, stringimi al tuo core,
Fammi provar l'ebbrezza dell'amor.
Forbidden Music, Op. 5
Composer: Stanislao Gastaldon
Text: “Flick-Flock”
Underneath my balcony every evening
I hear a love-song,
Repeated several times by a handsome young man
And it makes my heart beat faster.
O how sweet is that melody!
O how pretty, how I love to hear it!
My mother will not let me sing it,
Though why she would forbid me, I don't know.
Now that she is out I am going to sing
The song that I found so exciting.
I'd like to kiss your raven hair,
Your lips and your solemn eyes;
I would want to die with you, O heavenly angel,
My beautiful beloved, precious jewel.
Yesterday I saw him walking by,
And heard him sing as he always does:
I'd like to kiss your raven hair,
Your lips and your solemn eyes!
Clasp me, darling, clasp me to your heart,
Let me feel the ecstasy of love!
Translations by: Antonio Giuliano
Funeral Blues
Composer: Benjamin Britten
Text: W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
3. Performance by LYNX soprano, Olivia Doig, and pianist, Florence Mak
Amplify Series
“I want to see the world, not by the whole, but by the all too beautiful small things.” -Ryan Harris
These words by then-16-year-old Ryan Harris, a young man with autism* who is primarily nonspeaking, inspired LYNX’s Amplify Series (formerly Autism Advocacy Series).
The Amplify Series commissions composers to set the poetry and prose of autistic individuals who are primarily nonspeaking to music. Now in its fifth year, the series has commissioned work from over 40 poets and composers. Learn more about the history of the project.
Selections from the first three iterations have been published in a sheet music anthology by NewMusicShelf publishing, and the accompanying recording is available as a digital download or CD via ArtistShare!
*Some of our writers prefer person-first language while others prefer identity-first. We alternate on our website, depending on whom we are talking about and their preferences.
Selections from Amplify Series,
performed by Olivia Doig and Florence Mak
Luke Burke, writer
Joel David Balzun, composer
March 2017: Lucky
from Was/Am/Will be
Composer: Joel David Balzun
Text: Luke Burke
Want my voice to work.
So sorry my body won’t cooperate.
I am trying my best
but my body won’t listen to my brain.
I think I have a lucky family
Because they have me as a son.
Ryan Harris, poet
Emily Cooley, composer
beautiful small things
Composer: Emily Cooley
Text: Ryan Harris
I want to see the world
not by the whole
but by the all too beautiful small things
My overwhelming emotion
is that there is always hope.
4. Presentation from Amplify Series Advisory Council member Mitchell Robins
Words from Mitchell Robins
Mitchell Robins is a nonspeaking autistic advocate and a member of LYNX’s Amplify Series Advisory Council. The Council was formed to center neurodiverse voices in the planning and implementation of the Amplify Series, particularly as the series expands with the publication of an album and sheet music anthology. The council includes past Amplify Series writers with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Mitchell Robins
Mitchell’s bio:
My name is Mitchell and I am an autistic teen. I want to share my life with the world in hopes that I can bring awareness of what it is like to live with autism. I believe spelling as a form of communication is not well understood and I hope to bring awareness to this lifestyle and change that for autistic people everywhere. I am on the move a lot because it helps me concentrate and apply myself. I don’t think it is a problem, I just think I am different. I want the world to see different as beautiful and not scary like they do now. I know I may not act like everyone else, but that is what makes me awesome! I use a letter board to communicate and I am starting to use a keyboard on my iPad.
5. Words from Composition of a City co-creators, Olivia Doig and Aasha Francis
Composition of a City
Composition of a City is a songwriting program that uses hip hop and classical art song to empower students to share their stories through original songs.
The digital curriculum includes six lesson plans that align to the principles of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and IL Arts Learning Standards, 28 videos, worksheets, supplementary materials, and adapted lesson plans for students with diverse learning needs. COAC is available free to educators. Want to use it in your classroom? Let us know!
The curriculum was co-created by Olivia Doig and Aasha Francis.
This “remix” of beautiful small things was written by Olivia Doig and Aasha Francis as an example for students of how elements from art song and hip hop, including sampling, beats, live acoustic instruments, singing, and rapping, can come together to create something entirely new.
Featured on tonight’s program is Daysia J., a student from Composition of a City’s virtual pilot program, whose original performance is also featured in the published video curriculum!
Daysia’s performance in Lesson Six of the digital curriculum. From left: Olivia Doig, Aasha Francis, and student artist Daysia J.
6. Performance of beautiful small things remix by Olivia Doig, Aasha Francis, and student artist Daysia J.
beautiful small things remix
Aasha’s verse:
I’ll never cease to overlook the joy
When winter sheds its freeze and the icicles get destroyed
Cause sunrays spread their fingertips across Chi, Illinois
Now spring has sprung and with it comes the smiles of girls and boys
Creation’s not mythology keep your Helen of Troy
Elation God is proud to see humanity employ
The beauty of the flowers arrayed in all of their glory
Taking rest in the green grass passing hours tells the story
Of seasons changing people hanging reasons clinging to truth
That when you encounter difficulty it’s time to uproot
Your focus off of your problems empower be your own sooth
Sayer layer on your foresight and know your right to lose
Yourself in minor details that can undo major blues
Yesterday’s troubles gone today so marvel at the proof
In all the beautiful small things
That make suitable tall dreams
Irrefutable callings to love and keep on falling
Chorus:
See the world
by the beautiful small things
Daysia’s verse:
These stories I’m finna tell you will not be takin’ lightly,
I am a black girl, curly-haired now that’s precisely,
Complexion’s dark and I’m gracious with it, it’s how I’m brought up,
And like Nat Turner Ion take no mess that’s how I’m taught up,
You pay attention tuh that hate? They wanna be just like us ,
However cultural appropriation is how they bind us,
No matter what you can never let vexation define us
It’s the little beautiful things that really help to find us,
I inherit the slave,
I inherit the brave,
I inherit the soul food yeah that’s what I crave,
I inherit the art,
I inherit the music,
I inherit uh mastermind please just don’t confuse it,
The melanin in my skin? I inherit it too,
I inherit the brown eyes and the ageless youth ,
I said it once before and I’mma say it again,
This is the truth summarized way from deep within…