Edward Knight (composer) - First Song Cycle

First Song Cycle

A commission from the American Music Festival for a 15-minute work for soprano and orchestra inspired Knight to compose his first song cycle, “Life Is Fine.” Knight’s setting of six Langston Hughes poems was premiered by the American Music Festival Orchestra. Wayne Lee Gay of Knight-Ridder News Service called the work “inventive and melodic…an eclectic, lyrical orchestral song cycle.” Gay wrote: “Life is Fine has the sound of a work that may well be a major addition to the American vocal-orchestral repertoire.”

The work won first prize in the San Francisco Song Festival's American Art Song Competition and became the centerpiece of Knight’s first commercial solo CD, Where the Sunsets Bleed: The Chamber Music of Edward Knight, released by Albany Records and featuring soprano Marquita Lister. In reviewing the release, The American Record Guide called Knight “a storyteller by inclination,” and noted his “witty, in-your-face stuff sung with flair by Lister.” At the work's West Coast premiere, the San Francisco Classical Voice review noted a "Debussyan longing," noting: "The piece exhibited a remarkable expressive range, with each song in the cycle deploying a different musical strategy to match each poem's mood, from dreamlike to jazzy to sarcastic. Soprano Marnie Breckenridge's vitality brought the piece to life...she delivered the scat-like cadenza with perfectly nuanced blue notes and a wonderful sensitivity to expressive timing."