First Glimpse 2022 - Clocks and Metronomes
"Clocks and Metronomes” from Through the Doors
Music and Text by Ania Vu
Mario Diaz-Moresco, baritone
Kelly Horsted, piano
From the opera Through the Doors, "Clocks and Metronomes" is a song about a metronome-maker who believes that music can control time.
Text:
FATHER:
Clocks tick-tock at the same rate.
Metronomes click-clock at the rate you dictate.
They stretch or shrink
Seconds of a clock.
Thein-between of a tick and a tock.
My watches and clocksUsed to tick-tock
But never in sync!If one would be late,
The rest wouldn’t wait!
Some would accelerate,
Others re-calibrate,
And at least one, if not two, three, four, five, six
Would collapse or take a break!
But time would go on.
That crisp sound
Precision,
Impeccably timed
Coordination
Would simply be gone!
So, from a lousy watchmaker,
I became the world’s first metronome-maker.
For music holds a magical power.
The power to control time!
Or perception of time…
Same thing.
My ultimate dream is to enable time-travel all around
Only by using metronome sounds.
Video - Chris Comfort
Audio - Craig Slon
Production Assistant - Joel Kalow
Recorded on location at South Oxford Space, Brooklyn, NY
Created in Cycle 11 of The American Opera Project’s “Composers & the Voice” Fellowship Training Program
C&V Artistic Director: Steven Osgood
Head of Music: Mila Henry
Head of Drama: Matt Gray
Music Directors: Mila Henry, Kelly Horsted, Ron Robinson
http://aopopera.org/composers-voice
Composers & the Voice is made possible in part by generous multi-year awards from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.