Unto Thee I Burn: Song Settings of E.E. Cummings Poetry by North American Woman Composers is the title of a new CD being released by Presidential Scholar and Eastman alumna Eileen Strempel (BM’89) and Assistant Professor of Chamber music/ Accompanying and Director of Summer@Eastman Sylvie Beaudette (DMA’93). It combines the inspiring poems of E.E. Cummings with music of several notable American women composers: Jocelyn Hagen, Judith Cloud, Christine Donkin, Libby Larsen, Hilary Tann, and Regina Harris Baiocchi.
Strempel and Beaudette commissioned these women composers, who set Cummings’ poetry to music with a variety of stylistic approaches and compositional styles. This new CD comes out today, March 10, and is dedicated to the teaching of Jean Barr, Eastman Professor of Accompanying, and Helen Boatwright, the soprano who taught for many years at Syracuse University and at Eastman from 1972 to 1979.
— Andrew Psarris ’15