Official site of composer Andrea Clearfield. Biography, list of works with audio, score samples, reviews and program notes, photographs, upcoming performances.
Scored for: alto flute (or C flute) and guitar Duration: 7 min. Premiere: May 4, 2016, Duo Sequenza Arranged for: Duo Sequenza Published by: Angelfire Press. Choral version, “Farlorn Alemen” published by G. Schirmer.
Contact Trudy Chan at Black Tea Music for score and parts, or contact Andrea:
Alto Flute and Guitar
Originally commissioned by Raya Gonen for soprano and piano. This arrangement for alto flute and guitar was created by the composer for Duo Sequenza and is included in this compilation CD released on September 9, 2022.
PROGRAM NOTES
This is the composer’s arrangement of the first movement her song cycle (originally for soprano and piano) for alto flute and classical guitar. This arrangement was premiered on May 4, 2016 by Duo Sequenza on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Memorial Opera House, Valparaiso, Indiana. The original version was sung to the following Yiddish poem written by Sima Yashonsky-Feitelson. The English translation here is by Raya Gonen, the Israel soprano who commissioned the song cycle in 2008.
Losing Everyone
Do you know what it means to be alone?
Can anyone understand my heart’s pain?
Losing mother, father, husband and friend
Whom can I turn to today?
My heart is now bleeding from pain
My eyes can shed no more tears
Everything in me has turned into stone from anguish
Together with them, I’ll never be again.
I will never know anymore the happiness
which I felt only a few weeks ago.
I have no mother, father, husband anymore.
Is there still any happiness reserved for me in the world?
Will I never see them again, then?
Is my life lost forever?
Will I ever hear the words “I love you” anymore?
Will my life story thus remain empty forever?
“Farlorn Alemen (Losing Everyone)” is the first movement of Andrea Clearfield’s song cycle set to texts by Sima Yashonsky-Feitelson, an inmate of the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania, who was 16 years old when she lost her family during World War II. Her young husband was taken to a forced labor camp nearby, in which all of the Kovno Ghetto Jews were shot. Sima documented her life and experiences in the ghetto in a booklet of poems in Yiddish, bearing witness to the atrocities, her feelings of fear, loss, and doubt whether she would see her husband ever again. Sima immigrated to Israel (with her husband who survived) and reunited with friends from the ghetto, including soprano Raya Gonen’s parents. As a token of friendship, Sima gave an autographed copy of her poems to Raya’s parents. After reading these, Raya felt compelled to be able to sing them and commissioned Andrea Clearfield to set them to music for Raya’s touring Holocaust songs program. Raya premiered the work at Monmouth University, N.J. in 2008, and a choral arrangement was commissioned and premiered by Nashira chorus.
This arrangement for alto flute and classical guitar was created by the composer as a tribute to Sima, her pain and her courage; a song without words.
The choral work, Farlorn Alemen, scored for SATB chorus and piano and set to Sima’s Yiddish poetry, is published by G. Schirmer.
Losing Everyone (Farlorn Alemen)
Scored for: alto flute (or C flute) and guitar
Duration: 7 min.
Premiere: May 4, 2016, Duo Sequenza
Arranged for: Duo Sequenza
Published by: Angelfire Press. Choral version, “Farlorn Alemen” published by G. Schirmer.
Contact Trudy Chan at Black Tea Music for score and parts, or contact Andrea:
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY
LISTEN ON SOUNDCLOUD
FARLORN ALEMEN (Losing Everybody)
Alto Flute and Guitar
Originally commissioned by Raya Gonen for soprano and piano. This arrangement for alto flute and guitar was created by the composer for Duo Sequenza and is included in this compilation CD released on September 9, 2022.
PROGRAM NOTES
This is the composer’s arrangement of the first movement her song cycle (originally for soprano and piano) for alto flute and classical guitar. This arrangement was premiered on May 4, 2016 by Duo Sequenza on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Memorial Opera House, Valparaiso, Indiana. The original version was sung to the following Yiddish poem written by Sima Yashonsky-Feitelson. The English translation here is by Raya Gonen, the Israel soprano who commissioned the song cycle in 2008.
Losing Everyone
Do you know what it means to be alone?
Can anyone understand my heart’s pain?
Losing mother, father, husband and friend
Whom can I turn to today?
My heart is now bleeding from pain
My eyes can shed no more tears
Everything in me has turned into stone from anguish
Together with them, I’ll never be again.
I will never know anymore the happiness
which I felt only a few weeks ago.
I have no mother, father, husband anymore.
Is there still any happiness reserved for me in the world?
Will I never see them again, then?
Is my life lost forever?
Will I ever hear the words “I love you” anymore?
Will my life story thus remain empty forever?
“Farlorn Alemen (Losing Everyone)” is the first movement of Andrea Clearfield’s song cycle set to texts by Sima Yashonsky-Feitelson, an inmate of the Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania, who was 16 years old when she lost her family during World War II. Her young husband was taken to a forced labor camp nearby, in which all of the Kovno Ghetto Jews were shot. Sima documented her life and experiences in the ghetto in a booklet of poems in Yiddish, bearing witness to the atrocities, her feelings of fear, loss, and doubt whether she would see her husband ever again. Sima immigrated to Israel (with her husband who survived) and reunited with friends from the ghetto, including soprano Raya Gonen’s parents. As a token of friendship, Sima gave an autographed copy of her poems to Raya’s parents. After reading these, Raya felt compelled to be able to sing them and commissioned Andrea Clearfield to set them to music for Raya’s touring Holocaust songs program. Raya premiered the work at Monmouth University, N.J. in 2008, and a choral arrangement was commissioned and premiered by Nashira chorus.
This arrangement for alto flute and classical guitar was created by the composer as a tribute to Sima, her pain and her courage; a song without words.
The choral work, Farlorn Alemen, scored for SATB chorus and piano and set to Sima’s Yiddish poetry, is published by G. Schirmer.