Connie Converse: One By One
This week I’ll be sharing a new song each day that features NYFOS artists making music in their homes.
We can hear each other pass, but we’re far apart
Right now for every artist who is inspired to create and reach out there is at least one who has lost all motivation or who has tried to sing and is unable to finish the song, overcome with emotion. All of us artists have experienced this at one time or another.
Today’s song performance is (almost) one of those experiences. Julia Bullock and her husband Christian Reif were generous enough to share this song “One By One” music and lyrics by Connie Converse, arr. Jeremy Siskind. Understandably, Ms. Bullock admits to having emotional difficulty getting through this song. (Her caption says that in the previous takes she did not make it through.)
Though Connie Converse’s songs were some of, if not the earliest and most catalytic of the American singer-songwriter movement, her songs did not sell. She was so frustrated with the lack of commercial success of her songs that she moved away from New York and almost completely stopped writing new songs. So many of our colleagues are experiencing a similar writer’s block now.
Ms. Bullock commissioned this arrangement of “One by One.” “I asked Jeremy to keep Schubert in mind when he wrote the arrangement,” the singer told me “because Converse’s poetry and melodies remind me of the simplest, surprising, and poignant lieder. (She was a marvel…)”
“One By One”
Connie Converse (b. 1924-disappeared 1974), arr. Jeremy Siskind (b.1986)
Performed by Julia Bullock and Cristian Reif.
It is only fitting that we hear another song, a Schubert song performed by today’s artists: “Wanderers Nachtlied” D.768 music by Franz Schubert, poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Julia and Christian’s performance here is devastatingly honest, generous, and at the same time poised and elegant.
At Warren Jones’ suggestion, he and I added this song to one of our recital programs. That program features all wanderer songs. “Wanderers Nachtlied” completed the old iteration of the Schubert group with much needed balance: the other songs were fatalistic, aggressive, and/or jovial. I hear this song as encouragement to the weary wanderer: “Just wait. Soon, you, too shall rest.” Many of us — artists, health care workers, grocery and delivery workers, teachers, students, etc. — are in a precarious, tiring, frightening situation. For some, this message: “you, too shall rest,” may be welcome, comforting, reassuring, and much needed. Thank you, Julia and Christian.
Andrew Garland has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia festival, Vocal Arts DC, Marilyn Horne Foundation, The Bard Festival, The Cleveland Art Song Festival, Camerata Pacifica, Andre-Turp Society Montreal, Voce at Pace, Huntsville Chamber Music Guild, Fanfare in Hammond, LA, Cincinnati Matinee Musicale, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Tuesday Morning Music Club, American Pianist Awards, The Phillips Collection, Vocal Arts DC, and venues in Italy, Croatia, Greece and Turkey. He has performed in concert with the Atlanta Symphony, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn, National Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Washington Master Chorale at the Kennedy Center, National Chorale at Lincoln Center, and the Takács, Dover, Amernet, and Deadalus String Quartets. He has performed leading opera roles at Seattle Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Minnesota Opera, and many others. Garland is a member of the voice faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His discography includes recordings on Telarc, Naxos, Azica, and Roven records. He is a proud member of the NYFOS Artists Council and has performed in 8 different NYFOS programs.
Read other posts by Andrew Garland.
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