Program notes: Twelve Moons

Program notes: Dvanáct Měsíců / Twelve Moons

a lyrical journey through the Czech slavic calendar

When I began working on the music for this project the only concrete thing I had in mind was that I wanted to write a song cycle. The final theme came from my Czech language studies. Czech is complex to learn, full of idiosyncrasies and embedded meanings that are difficult to truly grasp as a native English speaker. The names for the Czech months are an example of this character, with their etymology drawn directly from their season. These rich words became the starting point for each composition of this project.

The names for each month have multiple possible translations, some quite abstract, so I had to bring my own interpretations to the creative process. Many of the lyrical ideas on the album come from research into European folklore, but I couldn't ignore that I have grown up on the other side of the world with an entirely different culture and landscape. I have drawn just as much from my own experience of language and location as from European art, literature and travel. This resulted in songs with a universal sense of place, and an emphasis on the human experience that remains constant regardless of language, culture or location.

Twelve Moons was written to be performed in full from start to finish, with each composition giving way to the next, just as the months merge seamlessly into each other.

1. Červenec

červenec / july
Red. The worm that eats the fruit.

2. A Low Heavy Sun

srpen / august
Sickle, harvest time. An early autumn love song. 

3. Bohemian Heatwave

září / september - říjen / october
Rutting, copulating, the time when animals are in heat. A Prague apartment in a heatwave.

4. High Above The City

listopad / november - prosinec / december
Listopad's leaf-fall gives way to Prosinec's pallid sky. A city love song.

5. Únor of the Heart

leden / january - únor / february
Leden’s ice, slick and glassy, cracks and melts. Únor sees pieces break away and plunge into the water below. 

6. Maiden's Tear

březen / march
In Finnish folklore the birch is said to have originated from a maiden's tear. The tear wells, grows heavy and falls with a splash. 

7. Two Acorns

duben / april - květen / may - červen / june
In an old folk custom names are carved onto acorns and floated in a basin of water to determine the truth of a love. Duben’s oak blossoms into květen, the cycle closes with a reprise of Červenec.