Many Thousand Gone
solo piece for cello and voice (single player)
Commissioned by Marianne Baudouin Lie for solo cello and voice (one player), Many Thousand Gone draws inspiration from on an old African-American folk song of the same name. Premiered in February 2017, Many Thousand Gone expresses my reaction to the ongoing refugee crisis.
This ‘story’, told with music and fragments of folksongs, is based on the enormous diversity of stories which I have learned from refugee friends, and read in the media. Those of us who have grown up in relatively peaceful countries cannot truly understand what it means to have to flee from one’s homeland. The closest I have come to understanding comes from my deep empathetic response — having a young child myself — to mothers who have fled with infants and young children. What must it be like to undertake such a journey while also doing your best to care for your children? I cannot imagine. This ‘story’ for cello and voice is told from the perspective of a mother, remembering. Fragments of two folksongs, one American and one Norwegian, are woven into the piece: ‘Many Thousand Gone’ is an American slave spiritual from the mid-1800s, and ‘Vi har ei tulle’ by Margrethe Munthe about absolute love for one’s child…something which is the same across all cultures.
Funded by The Norwegian Composers Fund (Det Norsk Komponistfondet).
Many Thousand Gone (a few verses)
No more children stole from me | Many thousand gone…
