Arizona Public Radio | Your Source for NPR News
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Inquiring Minds - Poetry in Motion

By Bonnie Stevens

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-963843.mp3

Flagstaff, AZ – NAU's Judith Cloud is putting poetry in motion.

This is inquiring Minds, insights from the campus of Northern Arizona University.

Mezzo-soprano soloist and composer Dr. Judith Cloud has made it to Carnegie Hall. In 2009 she took first place in the Sorel Choral Composition Competition in New York's famous concert venue.

The latest accomplishment for this vocal studies professor is her debut recital CD, "Letting Escape a Song." These neo-romantic melodies for poetry have been escaping from her NAU studio for years.

"There are some poems that just ring out with this beautiful musical quality," she explains. "The way the consonants and vowels are put together, it's a beautiful thing."

Poems that sing to her have the rhythmic power to delight the senses, revive the soul or move the heart.

"When you put these words to motion," she says, "it has the potential to elongate that emotion, that feeling, that sense of delight."

Cloud floats from poet to poet, piano to guitar, English to Spanish, balancing her soprano with baritone.

The last poem in the collection inspired not only the music but the title for the album.

"I will keep you in my pocket like the pulse on my wrist, One day I will slit your lips with my fingers letting escape a song."

When she heard that, she thought to herself, "that's the perfect title for my CD!"