Present Music ‘The Blue Hour’ banner
Carolyn Forché’s Blue Hour has been described as “an elusive book, because it is ever in pursuit of what the German poet Novalis called ‘the [lost] presence beyond appearance.’ The longest poem, ‘On Earth’” is a transcription of mind passing from life into death, in the form of an abecedary, modeled on ancient gnostic hymns,” according to a review in https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/393726.
The poem was inspirational and The Blue Hour, a song cycle, was written collaboratively by Nova and composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Caroline Shaw and Sarah Kirkland Snider.
On April 11, Nova will be joined by a small string orchestra guest-conducted by Deanna Tham of the Oregon Symphony for a performance of The Blue Hourat Milwaukee Art Museum: presentmusic.org/events.
This program is aligned with two exhibits at the Milwaukee Art Museum: “50 Paintings” and “Idris Khan: Repeat After Me”.
A Far Cry
In 2022, the Boston–based chamber orchestra A Far Cry released a recording of the piece. Shara Nova and Rachel Grimes spoke about that experience.
Nova, who just left a meeting with Laurie Anderson before our phone conversation, contrasted The Blue Hour with working with her band My Brightest Diamond.
“In terms of side-by-side songwriting, this is a first … to jointly make so many decisions together, to be both composer, actor, producer, engineer, and the sheer scale of the work, with so many moving parts—those were new experiences that were complicated. It was like moving a steam liner rather than a sailboat. There are a lot more gears and levers to turn the ship around.”
For Nova, the recording was its own entity, and she wanted the ability to make more decisions or suggestions about what textures the vocals should have. “I felt really strongly there needed to be production more like a pop record and was willing to take the responsibility on, and folks were happy for me to do that, so I suggested changes as a performer of the work, and as a producer.”
What are her thoughts on playing a show at an art museum? “Venue affects how people experience the work, whether they feel welcome, relaxed, formal, and so I hope everyone feels welcome in this space.
The Blue Hour has a continual list of images in the piece that I hope will become even more vivid to be in a space that so highly values the image itself. Acoustics are always a concern, but I think the space is going to be very alive and I hope, vibrant.”
Keen listeners may recall Rachel Grimes from the handful of albums she recorded with chamber-minimalist group Rachel’s for Chicago label Quarterstick Records. With the group Hula Hoop, Grimes recorded a Peel Session: hulahooplouisville.bandcamp.com/album/the-peel-sessions-2.
Speaking via landline, Grimes says she discovered Carolyn Forché’s work the old-fashioned way. At the Louisville Public Library Grimes selected several bookbags of poetry which led to her contacting Forché, whose reaction “could not have been more generous, delighted and open-hearted. We set up a call with her and the five composers. She invited us to excerpt the work to do what we needed to make it work.”
In July of 2016, after a few months of emails and Google meetings to choose the text and discuss the scope of the project, all five composers and several members of A Far Cry, the commissioning chamber orchestra, met in Princeton, NJ to brainstorm about how to approach the text and make a wish list of musical ideas and themes they wanted to explore, Grimes said.
The composers each chose favorite passages from “On Earth” and assembled those excerpts into a libretto for the piece in the abecedarian order in which they originally appeared in the poem. After that weekend together, they went home to begin to create the musical material and demos for each of their passages, which ended up being several individual pieces from each composer.
Grimes says the excerpts kept the general form of the poem; it felt musical, timeless, universal and intimate. “It had so much in the way of imagery. I spoke it out loud to myself a few times and the lines just rolled off the tongue. There is an eloquence and elegance to the lines and imagery that just felt really rich.”
For a video of Nova's work, visit
