No Experiences No. 2

This is a film of a setting of a poem inspired by a tweet by a robot (**Late Update: Okay, it turned out it wasn’t a robot.**). Jason Buckwalter and Kimberly Christie are thoroughly charming, and John Belkot did a great job directing this little film. Victoria Nece did the title sequence and color treatment that makes the ‘train platform’ complete.

I love strange, little poems. When you’re writing a ‘song cycle’ or piece of ‘chamber music’ per se, you often have to take ten minutes with this sort of text. Or when you write a song you have at least three. But part of the beauty of these poems is their size, and the quiet space they create around themselves.

One of my favorite things about the internet, filled as it is with brevity and low budget film, is the chance to do a piece of this scale and have it feel at home. This is how I read poetry, and how I love poetry, and for all that it’s hard to fit ‘being a composer’ into ‘the internet’, this works.

So thanks, Erin, Jason, Kimberly, John, and Victoria, for making this possible. I’m very grateful.

Read Erin’s poem.
Check out the handwritten score.

Jason Buckwalter, baritone
Kimberly Christie, soprano
Erin Watson, poet
Kevin Clark, composer
John Belkot, director
Victoria Nece, titles and color

Update: No Experiences No. 23

I’ve had these poems in the back of my head for so long. I love the format of the two unaccompanied voices, and I really want to get all twenty four set, and made into a nice little songbook of theatrical duets. But in the meantime, check out the other video that Jason, Kim, and John shot, No Experiences No. 23.

If you want to hear the rest of these songs, or have a little book of twenty four theatrical duets, leave a comment below.