Poet William Kupinse and composer Greg Youtz return to the stage: 
7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 3, Tahoma Room


TACOMA, Wash. – Following the popularity of last winter’s Poetry Above the Roar event, three Pacific Northwest artists—a poet, composer, and a singer—will again take the chill out of the season with a return performance.

Mezzo-soprano Erin Calata will sing ten works of poetry written by Tacoma’s first poet laureate William Kupinse, who is a member of University of Puget Sound’s English faculty. The ten poems, from his 2009 collection Fallow, have been set to original music by composer Greg Youtz, professor of music at Pacific Lutheran University.

The public event will start at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3, in the Tahoma Room of Commencement Hall on the campus of University of Puget Sound. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.

“Each piece captures some aspect of the experience of living in the Pacific Northwest along the shores of the Puget Sound,” the artists said in a statement. “The musical settings range in style from artsy to jazzy, serious to wry, but all draw from the shared and accessible vocabulary of popular song.”

Youtz’s music will be performed electronically by a computer capable of sounding like a small jazz combo or a chamber orchestra. Reflecting on the process of writing music for Kupinse’s poetry, Youtz wrote on his blog, The Making of Beautiful Things in Sound:

“I was struck by how much many of them brought powerfully to mind our own Puget Sound experience—plants, animals, water, trees, gloomy winters which give way to springs full of promise. I began with a poem that is still one of my favorites: “Point Defiance,” which meditates in various ways upon the huge, wild park in the city of Tacoma—its hidden pathways through old growth forest, its beaches with giant bleached tree trunks angling down toward the water.”

The ten poems to be performed can be read at the blog WilliamKupinse. The music for two of the pieces can be heard on Youtz’s blog, as above.

Erin Calata is a mezzo-soprano, based in the Seattle-Tacoma area, who has performed in a wide variety of genres, including early and baroque music, opera, musical theater, and new music. Calata has sung with the Arizona Opera chorus; Stuttgart Festival Ensemble in Germany, Texas; Early Music Project in Austin, Texas; the Victoria Bach Festival New Young Artist program in Victoria, Texas; and Pacific MusicWorks and Queen City Musicians in Seattle. 

William Kupinse is associate professor of English at University of Puget Sound. His poems have appeared in The Fourth River, Green Letters, Cascade, and Cimarron Review literary journals. Kupinse was Tacoma’s poet laureate from 2008 to 2009. A collection of his poems, titled Fallow, was published with the support of the Tacoma Arts Commission in 2009.

Gregory Youtz is professor of music at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., where he teaches composition, theory, and courses in world music. His compositions include song cycles, concertos, operas, and numerous works for orchestra, wind ensemble, choir, and chamber ensembles. He is a lifelong traveler, drawing inspiration from numerous world traditions for his music, particularly those in China and Trinidad.

For directions and a map of the University of Puget Sound campus:pugetsound.edu/directions.
For accessibility information please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3236, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

Press photos of the three collaborators can be downloaded from: pugetsound.edu/pressphotos

Tweet this: Poet Bill Kupinse @univpugetsound composer Greg Youtz @PLUNews in Poetry Above the Roar Nov 3, 7pm. http://is.gd/EKJt4G

Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/univpugetsound