The Constitutional Convention of 1787 as seen through modern eyes with comparisons to recent history.

"Clara" an opera in two acts with music by Victoria Bond, and libretto by Barbara Krieger. Published by Theodore Presser.

"A tuneful pastiche of ragtime, blues and gospel traditions with a dash of modern dissonance." -The Courier-Journal

The text of Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming comes from James Joyce's novel Ulysses, and is the pentultimate episode.

The language is pervasively chromatic, yet it takes in influences of all sorts, including blues, a waltz and fragments of popular songs mentioned by Joyce." -The New York Times

WQXR Radio: A Thousand More Will Rise: Victoria Bond Finds Inspiration in Women Past and Present. 

Sirens is a work that I will be composing to a text taken from episode 11 of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The action takes place in a bar, and involves two seductive barmaids who flirt with customers. Several men stand around the piano, singing and flirting with the barmaids, and Leopold Bloom observes the scene, feeling alienated and lonely. As with all of the episodes in Ulysses, this episode is about being an outsider, a stranger in a strange land, a misfit and someone who is scorned and reviled by the society in which he lives. Leopold Bloom is Jewish and experiences prejudice living in Dublin. He is also everyman or everywoman who feels apart and alone in the midst of a world that has no use for him or her.
The piece will be scored for the Cygnus Ensemble: 2 guitars, flute, oboe, violin, cello and piano and has been commissioned by the Shapiro Fund for the Cygnus Ensemble. This will be the fourth section of Ulysses that I will be setting, having already set episodes 12 (Cyclops); episode 17 (Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming) and episode 18 (Molly ManyBloom). It will be approximately 20 minutes long and will involve 5 singers: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass-baritone.

https://soundcloud.com/victoria-bond-7/sets/molly-manybloom-excerpt

Sirens is a work that I will be composing to a text taken from episode 11 of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The action takes place in a bar, and involves two seductive barmaids who flirt with customers. Several men stand around the piano, singing and flirting with the barmaids, and Leopold Bloom observes the scene, feeling alienated and lonely. As with all of the episodes in Ulysses, this episode is about being an outsider, a stranger in a strange land, a misfit and someone who is scorned and reviled by the society in which he lives. Leopold Bloom is Jewish and experiences prejudice living in Dublin. He is also everyman or everywoman who feels apart and alone in the midst of a world that has no use for him or her.
The piece will be scored for the Cygnus Ensemble: 2 guitars, flute, oboe, violin, cello and piano and has been commissioned by the Shapiro Fund for the Cygnus Ensemble. This will be the fourth section of Ulysses that I will be setting, having already set episodes 12 (Cyclops); episode 17 (Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming) and episode 18 (Molly ManyBloom). It will be approximately 20 minutes long and will involve 5 singers: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass-baritone.

The eleventh episode in Ulysses is James Joyce’s verbal equivalent of musical counterpoint. He has called this episode a “fuga per canonem,” assigning to each character the role of a musical line. Actual music is quoted and sung by the denizens of a bar in the Ormond Hotel as they gather around the piano.

Bridges in an expanded orchestral version.

Bridges

Program Note

The five movements of Bridges are inspired by actual bridges in different parts of the world and organized around a wide variety of cultures. Railroad Trestle Bridge in Galax, Virginia uses the motoric rhythm of a train and the sound of a fiddle and banjo playing country music. Stone Bridge over a Reflecting Pool in Suzhou is based on a traditional Chinese song called Moli Hua or Jasmine Flower. The Golden Gate Bridge recalls the folk music revival of the 1960's and 70's in California, with particular respect paid to the singer Joan Baez, whose haunting songs had a profound effect on me. I have combined her song “All My Trials” with a Chinese folksong called “Liu Yang River” as both reflect the culture of the Bay Area. The Brooklyn Bridge has a particularly happy coincidence. I wanted this bridge to partake of the vibrant be-bop era in New York City. In researching be-bop melodies, I came across a standard favored by many jazz musicians, “I Got Rhythm” by George Gershwin. Using only the harmonic chord changes to this tune, players crafted seemingly endless improvisations. As the song was written in the typical AABA song form, the “B” section was referred to as the “bridge”. Here was the ideal confluence of the many meanings of the word “bridge”, and I leaped at the opportunity to bring them all together. The fifth movement is The Mackinac Bridge, based on the folksong “The Water is Wide” because the bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere and spans a wide expanse of water over the straits of Mackinac, connecting Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.

"El Yunque" performed by the Seattle Collaborative"El Yunqu" is inspired by the sounds of the tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico.

4' | Recording | Sheet Music

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: In Tune with Justice
Program Note
Because Ruth Bader Ginsberg is a towering figure and an inspiration to me, I wanted to write a work that added music to her forceful words. Knowing that she loved opera, this was a natural. I chose Mozart’s overture to “The Marriage of Figaro” as the basis for my composition, borrowing freely and adapting his energetic pulse, so appropriate to RBG’s own boundless energy. My music weaves in and out of Mozart’s themes, beginning with a fast-paced overture and continuing with underscoring and interludes that highlight RBG’s words. I added quotes from “America the Beautiful” and “The Star Spangled Banner” to this mixture, expressing the patriotic pride that RBG felt towards this country. Jane Vial Jaffe has created a compact script, framing RBG’s words with her own original narrative and bringing into relief the struggle and triumph central to the story.

Victoria Bond's "Thinking like a Mountain" for narrator and orchestra, is based on an essay by American environmentalist Aldo Leopold. It tells how Leopold experienced an epiphany and converted from a hunter who shot wolves to someone whose life's work became protecting them and their habitat. The composition was commissioned by the Shanghai Symphony and performed and recorded by that orchestra.

Thinking Like A Mountain

The essay Thinking Like A Mountain crystallizes Aldo Leopold’s philosophy about the balance of nature and our ethical relationship towards its preservation. It is the personal confession of one who momentarily upset that balance and whose remorse became the catalyst which prompted him to become a leader in the environmental movement.

In setting this powerful essay, I wanted to paint a portrait of the mountain. I was fascinated by the overlapping life cycles of the many elements which shared the mountain’s space, from the slow progression of the rocks to the flickering instant of the insects. They simultaneously inhabited the same world and I saw a parallel in the music, where multiple tempos and melodic lines can co-exist. Rather than illustrating the literal sound effects of nature, this music seeks to give voice to an inner natural order built on the primary elements of acoustics as described by Pythagoras. At this level, mathematics and the natural order have much in common with the structure of mountains.

This composition was commissioned by a consortium including Explore Park in Virginia, The Billings Symphony in Montana, The Elgin Symphony in Illinois and the Shanghai Symphony in China.

_____Victoria Bond

Protone Music; ASCAP
baritone-pno

From an Antique Land - Song Cycle on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Gerard Manley Hopkins