Concert on March 27, 2025

My song cycle “I Wear My Wings” consists of 6 songs based on Emily Dickinson. They are about loneliness and pain, happiness and ecstasy; religion and death; as well as love and love lost.

– Emily Dickinson truly believed (and I echo her!) that God can be found in simple things as well as one’s soul (1. “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church”),

– that at some points in life one can – as she did – struggle with identity and self-expression (2. “I was the slightest in the House”);

– that it is so exciting to drink deeply and joyously of nature’s beauty on a glorious summer day (3. “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed’),

– and it’s so unbearably hard to experience loss and feel completely ruined (4. “A Great Hope Fell”);

– that everyone can imagine phenomenon of love, exhilaration, its happy madness (5. “O, Wild Nights – Wild Nights”),

– and, finally, there is the poet’s wonder if death is the end of everything or if there is something more beyond it (6. “Will There Really Be a Morning?”).

As we know, Dickinson is one of the most celebrated poets of all time, and her poetry continues to inspire and captivate many composers, including myself.

The day of the world premiere of “I Wear My Wings”, my song cycle (see details in the poster) is getting closer and closer. Rehearsals with an amazing mezzo-soprano Deidra Palmour are in full swing/ they bring great joy of creative and human communication! What an exciting process it is: to feel together each of the 6 songs, literally in the simultaneous inhalation and exhalation! We discuss and, sometimes, argue, agree with the interpretation and are ready to experiment – how exciting and unique this process is! 

The six songs of the cycle tell of a reverent, poetic attitude to nature and the desire to be invisible; delight in the riot of colors around you, and the feeling of the heaviness of life; about the passionate desire to be with your loved one, and about that tiny hope that always exists.

The final countdown before the world premiere of my song cycle “I Wear My Wings”

Now it’s time for the dress rehearsal, the final countdown before the world premiere of my song cycle “I Wear My Wings”. I am thankful to fate for bringing us together and want to thank Deidra Palmour for her enormous singing talent, incredible artistry, for her rare attention to the smallest details, which always become artistic in her performance! I think, this home recording before the world premiere of my song cycle “I Wear My Wings” based on Emily Dickinson’s poems is very indicative: it has everything in a ready-made form.

Dress rehearsal of the 4th song “A Great Hope Fell” from my cycle ‘I Wear My Wings’ based on Emily Dickinson

While waiting for a professional video from the world premiere: this is another example of an amazing actor’s immersion into the character, deep experience of the moment: here is sound check of the 4th song “A Great Hope Fell” from my cycle ‘I Wear My Wings’ based on Emily Dickinson. Brava, Deidra Palmour!

The stage birth of my song cycle “I Wear My Wings”, based on Emily Dickinson

What a wonderful, perhaps, unique feeling it is that the stage birth of your “child” was successful! Despite the fact that several days have passed since the premiere on March 27, I am still in a state of post-concert euphoria! Thank you Deidra Palmour for a fantastic performance as well as for appreciation of my music! Who would have known that many years ago, initiated by Margarita Vishnyakova, my close friend and a wonderful drama actress, my writing of a cycle of 6 songs based on Emily Dickinson would eventually lead to such an amazing performance! It was deep, figurative, truly theatrical one which Deidra Palmour gave at the recent world premiere of my “I Wear My Wings”! https://youtu.be/MmXJDB34I8w 

All performing musicians know what a special feeling it is when you present a new composition to the audience for the first time. Did our stage duo manage to experience the feeling of “flight”, which simply has no equal in real life? I think we did – both of us fell we really did soar: sometimes we gained new heights, sometimes we slightly descended, but only to soar sharply into the heights again and again! I am very grateful to Deidra for our creative and human partnership.