Ina Donna

by Maija Hynninen

for four female voices, electronics and lights

Description

Poetry by Ina Coolbrith (1842–1928) stroke me as being simultaneously filled with lively passion and sorrow. During her lifetime she was a remarkable figure in the poetic circles of San Francisco, but nowadays her work is completely forgotten. It is not an uncommon story for a female artist balancing between getting financially by and focusing on her art – an equation that is hard to solve even in the present day.

Instead of using Coolbrith’s texts as whole, I decided to create a portrait of her – Ina Donna, where Ina as her self-chosen artistic name reflects the passionate commitment to work while Donna has a different perspective, where she feels left outside and describes her art in a gloomy setting: “This is my heritage, mine own, That alien hands from me withhold. From barred windows, dark and cold, I view, with heart that maketh moan.”

In her art, Ina Donna tries to build the unreachable. She wants her work to live on after she dies. For this portrait, I wanted to try to build something unreachable and utterly feminine – the moon. I set out to print a 9 inch moon on a 3D printer to see if it would actually work. Through trial and error, several months of work, and after four days of printing the moon was ready. The birds, the “fall of blossom snow upon the ground” of Coolbrith’s poetry made me think of Hildegard von Bingen’s music and especially her works on the Virgin Mary. When my music embraces Bingen in the 3rd movement, I think the question is left open – whether Ina Donna reaches the moon in her work or not.

- Maija Hynninen

Instrumentation

4voc [3sopr, alto], elect

Category

Vocal and Choral Works

Language

En

Lyricist

Ina Coolbrith

Prizes

Nicola De Lorenzo Prize, University of California Berkeley

Premiere

Quince Ensemble, April 13, 2019, Hertz Hall, Berkeley

Movements

1. Withheld, 2. Sufficient, 3. Ownership

Commisioned by / dedications

Dedicated to Quince Ensemble

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More

• Listen to Ina Donna on YouTube

Archive number

MF33942

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