tyson gholston davis

Ending my residency with @glasscloudsensemble next weekend with the premiere of a new song collection Saturday, Oct 31st at 2pm. Marisa and Raina approached me to write some new music in May for Glass Clouds’ residency on Governors Island. I wrote two songs with a little violin interlude using poems by E. E. Cummings. The resulting songs became a meditation on being present and mindful of the world, feelings, and events in one’s life. I found that one of the poem’s lines, “futures are obsolete: pasts are unborn” encompassed everything I sought out to capture musically. This line became the title for these songs.

With a busy summer of writing and working my day job at the Juilliard library, I didn’t get to spend nearly as much time at the beautiful house that we had for the residency. Here are a few pictures of my time there!

Many many thanks to Marisa, Raina, @governorsisland , and W. W. Norton (E. E. Cummings’ publisher) for making these songs possible. Will share clips of the performance in the near future! Swipe to end for poems (lyrics)!

“in time of daffodils(who know”, “life is more true than reason will deceive”.
Copyright © 1944, 1958, 1972, 1986, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E.
Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings,
edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing
Corporation.