Tenor, flute, and piano. 4 mins.
Selection from Sauntering Songs: a concert-length cantata on the theme of walking, commissioned by Skylark Vocal Ensemble.
Lyrics by Nell Shaw Cohen.
Perusal Score
Performance score available for purchase. Please direct inquiries to Nell Shaw Cohen at nell@nellshawcohen.com.
Program Note
A man rambles through a countryside of contested ownership, reclaiming his ancestral landscape.
“Trespassing” is a selection from Sauntering Songs: a concert-length cantata on the theme of walking, commissioned by Skylark Vocal Ensemble. My lyrics for this song were inuenced by historical and contemporary “right to roam” movements in Britain (captured in Ewan MacColl’s folk song “Manchester Rambler”); as well as Raja Shehadeh’s book Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, a heartbreaking tribute to the Arab sarha (which means “to roam freely, at will, without restraint”).
This song is dedicated to walkers whose homelands have become someone else’s property.
Performance History
Visit the Sauntering Songs page for performance history.