Poet Lindsay Ryder’s text suggests the lyrical, flowing piano solo heard at the beginning and end of this piece, a musical representation of the rivers Ryder describes in the beginning and end of her poem. This entire piece is constructed around the idea of various “reflections” within these rivers, most notably the piano chords heard throughout. In these particular musical reflections, or inversions, one chord is heard in the lower register of the piano, and then its “reflection” is played in the upper register.
The melody that the chorus sings near the end of this piece, “a little snow becomes a creek,” is derived from the opening piano solo’s melodic line. At the same time, though, the piano is mimicking the rhythms and melody of the chorus’s opening phrase (“Sometimes, when the mountains reflect on rivers”). Here, it is as if the chorus and the piano have traded places, or as if we’re hearing a “reflection” of the instruments themselves.
Dale Trumbore has won numerous awards for her compositions, including a recent grant from the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of American Composers Forum, the 2011 Sadye J. Moss Endowed Musical Composition Prize (at USC) and the 2006 Chanticleer Student Composition Competition. Dale grew up in New Jersey and earned a double major in Music Composition and English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. She graduated from the University of Southern California in 2011 with a master’s degree in Composition. Her dual interest in text and music often leads her to write music for voice, collaborating frequently with contemporary poets. She recently recorded a CD of art-songs with soprano Gillian Hollis, featuring three of Dale’s song cycles and highlighting texts by ten contemporary poets.
Lindsay Ryder Perez wrote her poem Reflections when she was in middle school, while growing up in Bend, Oregon. She later earned a Master’s Degree in Special Education, now lives in Phoenix, AZ with her husband and is the Life Skills Coordinator at a private special education school. She has always enjoyed the arts, especially music, and has played the piano her whole life. Lindsay has a life-long love of the beauty she finds in the mountains and nature that inspired the writing of Reflections. “I think it is a beautiful thing how the world takes care of itself – the snow on the mountains becomes the rivers and streams that support our lives”.
Sometimes,
when the mountains
reflect on rivers,
you can find out things
you never knew before.
There are flowers up there,
rocks like clouds,
a little snow becomes a creek
and grows into a river.
Lindsay Ryder, age 11
Bend, Oregon
