COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT: Theresa Koon | Mother of Exiles: The Genesis
Over the next few weeks, Resonance features composers and artists whose work will be performed at the Safe Harbor concert on March 1st.
We begin with Portland composer Theresa Koon. Koon’s work, “Mother of Exiles,” is a musical adaptation and reimagining of Emma Lazarus’s famous poem, ("Give me your tired, your poor...). Resonance is honored to feature the world premiere and we thank Theresa Koon for taking the time to share some of her thoughts here today.
“Since I don’t have the temperament or money for political campaigning, music is the vessel I can offer to give voice to the thoughts and feelings of people who have no voice in the world. ”
Composer Theresa Koon
The genesis for the creation of Mother of Exiles arose during a talk-back session in 2018 with Director Katherine FitzGibbon of the Resonance Ensemble, and Jan Elfers, who heads the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Resonance had just performed my Sufi cycle WHERE EVERYTHING IS MUSIC, and the tenor of our conversation with the audience centered around compassion, inclusivity and cooperation between people of differing faiths and backgrounds. An audience member inquired about my upcoming composing projects, and out of my mouth popped a plan to set Emma Lazarus’s famous poem “The New Colossus,” which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. Until that moment, this intention had barely registered itself in my mind. Kathy immediately asked if Resonance could perform it, which was an honor I accepted with delight.
Lady Liberty and Lazarus’s poem have been in the news a lot during the past year, including various reinterpretations of their significance. Here are a few details from my research:
After the Civil War, France gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States to commemorate the ending of slavery here, and to recognize the U.S. in finally becoming a “true democracy.” Soon after the Statue arrived, Emma Lazarus wrote her poem to express gratitude on behalf of her Jewish ancestors who had emigrated from Russia to the US during the pogroms. When poem was inscribed on the Statue in New York Harbor after Lazarus’s death, both Lady Liberty and “The New Colossus” combined to represent the face and voice of U.S. democracy, of freedom from slavery, and also as a welcome to desperate people in need of asylum. I believe the majority of Americans, despite our differences, still view the Statue of Liberty and her torch in this light, since most of us have ancestors who emigrated from somewhere else.
We are living at a time when immigration is a world-wide issue, which no one country can solve alone. To me, this is a delicate and complex situation that deserves compassionate consideration and collaboration. Since I don’t have the temperament or money for political campaigning, music is the vessel I can offer to give voice to the thoughts and feelings of people who have no voice in the world.
In working with the public domain text, I chose to set eleven of the fourteen lines in Lazarus’s sonnet, which include those that are best-known. At the point when the text refers to the Statue as “Mother of Exiles”, I began overlapping translations of that name in sixteen different languages, and also adopted it as the title of my choral version.
My dream is for Mother of Exiles to be performed by choirs around the world, with hopes that it will become an anthem for campaigns and organizations who believe in its purpose.
You can find out more about this project here:
For more information about Safe Harbor click here.