We have once again paired up with the Chicago organization Singers On New Ground (SONG) to bring together emerging poets and composers to create new work in the tradition of art song. (For a brief description of art song, see SONG Director Eric Malmquist’s Introduction to Art Song from last year’s contest.) Through our no-fee art song contest, poets submitted poems for consideration by this year’s guest composer, Luke Gullickson, who chose Katie Peterson’s “The Accounts” to set. Finalists were poets Sean Hill, Ishion Hutchinson, Hyejung Kook; each of these poets has work included in this special art song issue.

The premiere of Gullickson’s setting of Peterson’s work took place at SONG’s Ars Poetica II Concert in Curtiss Hall at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago in September, 2011, and the work was separately recorded for publication in Memorious. This recording is performed by Mezzo soprano Angela Latkowski who is accompanied by Frank Harriman and Ania Kucia (horns), Luke Gullickson (piano), Brian Baxter (percussion), Ben Weber (viola), and Eric Malmquist (bass).