Cusson SONGS FROM THE HOUSE OF DEATH v3.2

Ian Cusson

texts by Joy Harjo

SONGS FROM THE HOUSE OF DEATH

song cycle for Voice and Orchestra

From the G. Schirmer Rental Library

Date of Printing________________

G. Schirmer, Inc. New York, NY

Ian Cusson texts: Joy Harjo

SONGS FROM THE HOUSE OF DEATH song

cycle for Voice and Orchestra

Commissioned by the Vancouver Symphony and the Victoria Symphony

First performed on April 8, 2022

at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia with Krisztina Szabó, mezzo and the Vancouver Symphony, conducted by Nicolas Ellis.

1 . SONGS FROM THE HOUSE OF DEATH, OR HOW TO MAKE IT THROUGH TO THE END OF A RELATIONSHIP

1 .

From the house of death there is rain. From rain is flood and flowers. And flowers emerge through the ruins of those who left behind stores of corn and dishes, turquoise and bruises from the passion of fierce love.

2. I run my tongue over the skeleton jutting from my jaw. I taste the grit of heartbreak.

3.

The procession of spirits who walk out of their bodies is ongoing. Just as the procession of those who have loved us will go about their business of making a new house with someone else who smells like the dust of a strange country.

4.

The weight of rain is unbearable to the sky eventually. Just as desire will burn a hole through the sky and fall to earth.

5.

I was surprised by the sweet embrace of the perfume of desert flowers after the rain though after all these seasons I shouldn’t be surprised.

6.

All cities will be built and then destroyed. We built to near the house of the gods of lightning, too close to the edge of a century. What could I expect, my bittersweet.

7. Even death who is the chief of everything on this earth (all undertakings, all matters of human form) will wash his hands, stop to rest under the cottonwood before taking you from me on the back of his horse.

8. Nothing I can sing will bring you back. Not the songs of a hundred horses running until they become the wind Not the personal song of the rain who makes love to the earth.

9. I will never forget you. Your nakedness haunts me in the dawn when I cannot distinguish your flushed brown skin from the burning horizon, or my hands. The smell of chaos lingers in the clothes you left behind. I leave you there.

2. I AM A DANGEROUS WOMAN

The sharp ridges of the clear blue windows motion to me from the airport’s second floor. Edges dance in the foothills of the Sandias behind security guards who wave me into their guncatcher machine.

I am a dangerous woman.

When the machine buzzes they say to take off my belt, and I remove it so easy that it catches the glance of a man standing nearby. (Maybe that is the deadly weapon that has the machine singing.)

I am a dangerous woman, but the weapon is not visible. Security will never find it. They can’t hear the clicking of the gun inside my head.

3. THE CREATION STORY

I’m not afraid of love or it’s consequence of light.

It’s not easy to say this or anything when my entrails dangle between paradise and fear.

I am ashamed I never had the words to carry a friend from her death to the stars correctly.

Or the words to keep my people safe from drought or gunshot.

The stars who were created by words are circling over this house formed of calcium, of blood this house in danger of being torn apart by stones of fear.

If these words can do anything if these songs can do anything I say bless this house with stars.

Transfix us with love.

Instrumentation

2 Flutes (II = Piccolo)

2 Oboes

2 Clarinets in Bb

2 Bassoons (II = Contrabassoon)

4 Horns in F

2 Trumpets in C

2 Tenor Trombones

Bass Trombone

Tuba

Timpani

Percussion (1 player):

Snare Drum, Tenor Drum, Bass Drum, Cymbals, Suspended Cymbals, Triangle, Tam-tam, Wood Blocks, Orchestral Bells, Xylophone, Vibraphone

Strings

duration 22’

Contents

1. Songs From the House of Death..................................................................1

2. I Am A Dangerous Woman.......................................................................37

3. The Creation Story....................................................................................56

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