• Premiere: November 13, 2011 / Emily Hindrichs, soprano; Karine Bagdasarian, piano / St. Andrew's Hall / Trinity Church in the City of Boston

• Instrumentation: High Voice & Piano 

• Duration: 3'

• Text: Ciara Shuttleworth

Program Note

Ciara Shuttleworth wrote her magnificent “Sestina” in the middle of a graduate class on form at the University of Idaho. She interrupted her teacher mid-lecture, proclaiming her success with the ancient form, and he encouraged her to send it off for publication.  The New Yorker published it in their November 29, 2010 edition, which is where my wife read it. She immediately thrust the copy in front of me and said, “You need to set this.”

Shuttleworth has described her “Sestina” to me as “…the ultimate break up poem.”