Into Her Care (2022)
Elena Specht ( b. 1993)
World Premiere

(00:00) Near Heaven
(07:10) Año 45 de la Revolución Cubana
(14:00) Blue Slope Stories

Concert Band
Courtney Snyder, Conductor
Jenny Ribiero, soprano

Monday, October 3, 2022
Hill Auditorium

Elena Specht composes with an emphasis on colorful textures, lively rhythms, and graceful lyricism. Her music is inspired by places, history, captivating questions, visual art, and compelling stories. Specht’s music is enjoyed by both amateur and professional musicians, and it reaches diverse audiences. Recent performances and commissions have come from the United States Coast Guard Band, the Flint Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet, the University of Southern California Thornton Winds, the Denver Pops Orchestra, and the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble. Specht values creating music that is accessible to young and amateur musicians yet rich in quality. To that end, she has written works for middle school, high school, and community ensembles and has regularly arranged music for the Greater Boulder Youth Orchestras Wind Ensemble. Specht is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Kalamazoo College, where she teaches courses in music theory and music appreciation. She previously taught music theory, aural skills, and composition at Michigan State University and the University of Colorado-Boulder. She holds a Doctor of Music Arts in composition and a Master of Music in music theory from Michigan State University, as well as a Master of Music in composition from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She received a Bachelor of Music in composition and theory from Vanderbilt University. Her primary composition teachers have been David Biedenbender, Alexis Bacon, Carter Pann, Daniel Kellogg, and Michael Slayton.

The composer has written the following about the work:

Into Her Care is a song cycle in three movements for soprano and wind ensemble. It tells the stories of American women overcoming barriers created by land and space to unite and care for families and contribute to the physical and moral well-being of the next generation. The three texts, all distinct from each other, highlight in some way the often overlooked and undervalued work women do: running households, caring for older and younger generations, and maintaining family ties despite any number of obstacles they face.

In “Near Heaven,” a Norwegian-American immigrant mother makes a home as a pioneer in the woodlands of Wisconsin in the mid-nineteenth century. With a bare minimum of resources, she worked vigorously to provide for her family, teach her children, and be active in her small community. In “Año 45 de la Revolucion Cubana,” my aunt recalls her visit to Cuba in 1980 and the lingering separation “by the invisible wall” between our relatives in Cuba and those of us in the United States. Despite significant physical and political barriers, my aunt, my mom, and their cousin Ania have maintained strong relationships over the decades.

Finally, in “Blue Slope Stories,” I grapple with the physical beauty of the South along with its horrific past, contemplating the responsibility I have to show my own daughter both the beauty of these places and the truth of their history. Collectively, these texts acknowledge and celebrate the difficult work women do to meet the physical, relational, and moral needs of their families—and by extension, society. As one of the authors on Norwegian-American pioneers said of women, “into your care and keeping has been entrusted the greatest work accorded humanity.” The music seeks to capture the physical energy of each text as well as its emotional core. Into Her Care was written in 2021–22 as my dissertation for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Michigan State University. It was written for soprano Jenny Ribeiro and the University of Michigan Concert Band, conducted by Courtney Snyder. I would like to thank Mark Campbell for his assistance in crafting the texts of “Near Heaven” and “Blue Slope Stories,” as well as my aunt Helen Avalos for her permission to use her poem. Thanks to David Biedenbender and Ricardo Lorenz, my composition instructors who worked with me on this piece.

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