the stirring stillness will be available for purchase soon - please email me at lisa@lisabost.com with inquiries.

Composed: 2025
Medium: soprano and fixed media
Duration: 5:16
Dedication: Anne Christopherson

Program Note 

In 2006, I was still new to composition when I wrote a solo alto flute work titled when it rains / the river stands still. In it I explored singing and playing simultaneously, as I was writing the piece to premiere on my Master’s degree recital, and the alto flute fits my vocal range more agreeably than the C flute. Additionally, Theobald Boehm, the inventor of the alto flute, wrote "Because of the great facility for modulation of the full, sonorous tones of this flute, it is adapted to music in the song style, and for accompanying a soprano voice."

When a colleague presented me with the opportunity to write my first vocal work, I returned to Boehm’s words and decided to write for soprano and fixed media, creating the electronics track entirely using samples from my recording of when it rains—thus accompanying a soprano voice with the alto flute.

The title when it rains / the river stands still is a two-line poem I wrote to evoke a moment that included a stunning view of the Iowa River in a rainfall. It is a vivid and beautiful memory for me. Working on the stirring stillness brought me back to that moment in time as well as to equally evocative memories of writing when it rains. I decided to utilize syllables rather than text to revel in the intangibility and subtlety of such memories.

the stirring stillness was commissioned by Dr. Anne Christopherson as part of her “Legacy” project, supported by a University of North Dakota College of Arts & Sciences Artist & Humanities Scholarship Grant. I extend my thanks to UND for their support of this project and to Anne for fascinating conversations about voice classifications, vocal technique, and vowel selection.