Strawberry Man: Kendra Preston Leonard and Lisa Neher

08/01/21 • 21 min

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Kendra Preston Leonard's poem and Lisa Neher's song—about a man who sells fresh fruit on a summer day—celebrate something sumptuous where we would least expect it.
The performance of the song is by Arwen Myers, who is also featured in a previous episode about a song by Florence Price.
Be sure to check out other collaborations by Kendra Preston Leonard and Lisa Neher, especially the works in their micro-opera festival.
Strawberry Man
by Kendra Preston Leonard
The Strawberry Man
and his little pinto pony
Sweetness, slaked
in the city street
Poem reproduced with permission from the author

Previous Episode

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: Robert Frost and Margaret Bonds

Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and it has been set to music by many composers. This episode explores an extraordinarily inventive setting by the Black American composer Margaret Bonds (1913–1972), recently recorded by bass-baritone Justin Hopkins and pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers.

This recording comes from a playlist created by Hopkins and Cilliers, which includes performances of music by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.

To access a published score to the song, see Louise Toppin's anthology Rediscovering Margaret Bonds: Art Songs, Spirituals, Musical Theater and Popular Songs. Toppin, a professor of voice at University of Michigan who has been a longtime advocate for Bonds's music and the music of other African American composers, has also done a wonderful video recording of the song. See also the list of Bonds works published by Hildegard Publishing Company.

Learn more about Bonds's songs, access her song scores, and hear another performance by Hopkins and Ciliers on Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Next Episode

Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen (Tell Me, Where is Your Beautiful Sweetheart): Heinrich Heine and Rodrigo Ruiz

The 21st-century Mexican composer Rodrigo Ruiz sets a text by the 19th-century German writer Heinrich Heine. In so doing, Ruiz channels 19th-century musical style and offers a deeply moving interpretation of a poem about the loss of love and the death of an artistic tradition that Heine once held dear.
The performance of the song features soprano Grace Davidson and pianist Christopher Glynn.
The song appears on the CD An Everlasting Dawn. Check out Ruiz's recent CD of chamber works, Behold the Stars, on the Signum Classics label, and be on the lookout for Signum's release of his song cycle Venus & Adonis.
Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen
by Heinrich Heine
Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen,
Das du einst so schön besungen,
Als die zaubermächtgen Flammen
Wunderbar dein Herz durchdrungen?
Jene Flammen sind erloschen,
Und mein Herz ist kalt und trübe,
Und dies Büchlein ist die Urne
Mit der Asche meiner Liebe.
———
Tell me, where is your beautiful sweetheart
That you once sang of so beautifully
When the magical flames of love
Wonderfully pierced your heart?
Each flame is burnt out,
And my heart is cold and grey,
And this little book is the urn
With the ashes of my love.