Robbie Milner, a good friend and fantastic baritone who I met while studying at Edinburgh Napier University days, got in touch in March to discuss the possibility of collaborating on some repertoire for voice and piano. We have met up a couple of times to look through some repertoire and both found American composer Chris Deblasio's song cycle All The Way Through Evening (1990) hauntingly beautiful.
Deblasio who tragically died of HIV/AIDS in 1993 wrote All The Way Through Evening as an artistic response to AIDS and death. The song cycle uses text written by poet Perry Brass and consists of 5 songs:
The Disappearance of Light
Train Station
An Elegy To Paul Jacobs:
Poussin
Walt Whitman in 1989
Within the cycle Deblasio's tone-painting and musical setting beautifully captures the range of emotions within the text, all the way from thoughts of death and despair, through to consolation.
We have managed to record this and his other cycle In Endless Assent (1991) at the end of July and will be looking forward to releasing them soon!
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