Anderson Precious Memories

Performers
ANGELA PINTI
Soprano Angela Pinti has recently sung Marguerite (Faust) with Opera Company of Brooklyn and has been featured in the Brooklyn-based series, Concerts on the Slope. Ms. Pinti received her Bachelor of Music degree in Voice Performance from Westminster Choir College. She is a soloist at St. John’s Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

HEATHER PETERSON
Ms. Peterson is a graduate of Whitworth College where she received a double degree in Theater Arts and Vocal Performance and holds a Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music.
JOSEPH ANCOWITZ
Joseph Ancowitz is a professional singer and trumpet player who has been living and working in New York City since 2000. He has performed at many venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and has had TV appearances performing on Last Call With Carson Daly and most recently The Today Show.
JAMES NEWMAN
James Newman has sung a wide range of operatic roles and solo concerts with various opera companies, symphonies and music festivals around the country. Discovering a new passion in parent leadership and engagement, Mr. Newman currently serves as Associate Liaison for Parent Leadership with the NYC Department of Education. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, soprano and lifestyle coach Jenn Newman and their daughter Lyla.
Composer

BETH ANDERSON
Ms. Anderson is a composer of new romantic music, text-sound works, and music theater events. Her most recent recordings are out on MSR (The Preying Mantis and the Bluebird, 2014), New World (Swales & Angels, 2004), Albany (Quilt Music, 2004), Pogus (Peachy Keen-O, 2003) and Other Minds (10+2, 2003). Visit her at: www.beand.com. The score is available from the composer.
PRECIOUS MEMORIES (text)
by Beth Anderson and Jo-Ann Krestan
Silent angels, unseen angels sent from nowhere that I know
Let the sacred past unroll and soothe my soul.
I’ve learned a lot from my neighbors
Especially the ones who saved my life.
We will care about each other when in Eden we meet,
You will be my dearest neighbor up there.
If we never meet before we meet in Eden
There’s another meeting place somewhere
Somewhere darlin’ I’m tellin’ you now.
Searchin’, searchin’, searchin’
Searchin’ not too long.
I’ve learned not to trust anyone who’s not angry– once in a while
The ones who save it, collect it, roll it up into a ball.
The ones who treat it like a land mine
so shards stay in the body.
I want to be screamed at like everyone else,
Just not for very long.
Searchin’ not for very long.
Where the sweetest lilacs bloom,
Where no one has to say good-bye,
If we never meet before we meet in Eden
I will meet you in that beautiful time.
I can finally understand why people can’t feel.
I used to believe that they were just mean,
holding out on those warm, wet, puppy dog, heart enthralling,
dharma wrapping, relationship creating things called feelings.
Now I suspect they are just afraid.
It doesn’t even seem hostile anymore.
It’s just self-defense.
Heart enthralling, dharma wrapping, heart enthralling self-defense.
Silent angels.
To be taken seriously you’ve gotta live a long life.
If you die young, you couldn’t even do that right.
Got to live long. Do right.
The question, aside from how to be happy, is
how to live to be old.
Those wings, those feathers
Whooshing, silvery white in the navy blue evening–
Bringing messages of etheric flight,
Sat (existence), Chit (knowledge), Ananda (bliss absolute).
Sephardic seraphim singing quarter tones.
Calling in the wasteland of desire on wings of celibacy.
Swept onto the shores of senseless longing
Hoping for a descriptive critic.
Whispering hope, O how welcome Thy voice.
Those wings creating a breeze when everything around me is still.
Pale death. Grim death. Tyrannical death.
Azrael (Death’s bright angel and Gargamel’s cat). Bereavement is death.
Victimization is death.
Going to court is certainly death
and being in the hospital is as close to purgatory as we get in this life–
We shall gather at the river where bright angel feet have trod.
Running in red shoes
Feeling the breeze the body creates moving through the humidity.
I am running in red shoes.
Fainting in the open sewers that run right along beside you.
Dredge out death.
We’ve been here ten thousand years
Prop it up and breathe into it.
Make it your own. Fly around in it.
Bright shining as the sun
Swoop down and scoop it up.
Pour it over your head and drink it down.
We’ve no less days to sing
Our death. Our near death.
The death of those near to us.
Death, death and more …
Than when we first began.
Death at an ever increasing tempo.
Inharmonious, monophonic, disjunct.
Wraith-rending, rip-roaring death.
What’s a poor girl supposed to do besides play in a rock and roll band?