Details
Year: 2025
Duration: 10'
Instrumentation: mezzo-soprano, double bass, and piano
Collaborators: Devondre Jaquish, Yunlin Yang, and Jess Forgione
Premiere: 2 August, 2025, Thomas Hall, Brevard Music Center by Staley Clark, Joshua Rhodes, and Hazel Musto
The Little Book of Pride (2025)
Movements
I. Ellen DeGeneres, comedian, actress and talk-show host, comes out to Time magazine shortly before her fictional sitcom counterpart, “Ellen”, also came out in a first for primetime TV, 14 April 1997 (Matthew Hodge)
II. Transgender activist Sylvia Rivera at the Stonewall Riots, 1969 (Devondre Jaquish)
III. Intermezzo (Jaquish)
IV. Coming-out letter written by author Armistead Maupin to his mother, 1977 (Hodge)
V. Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1909, in a letter to her companion Sophie Elkan (Yunlin Yang)
VI. Actress Laverne Cox, the first openly transgender person to be on the cover of Time magazine, Buzzfeed, 16 March 2014 (Jess Forgione)
VII. Singer-songwriter and LGBTQ+ activist Melissa Etheridge (Hodge)
Program Notes
Near the end of Brevard Music Center’s 2025 Composition Institute, I found myself with all my projects completed and wondered, “What next?” There was a local bookstore I often visited with friends, and one day, a copy of The Little Book of Pride by Stella Caldwell caught my eye on a display shelf. In it were quotes from various queer pioneers. It sparked an idea. Devondre Jaquish, Yunlin Yang, Jess Forgione, and I began to brainstorm a collaboration on a song cycle: each of us would set a few quotes to music, and we would find a way to get the cycle performed by friends before the festival ended.
By some miracle, it came together. Our friend Joshua Rhodes, a bassist who had been asking us to write something for him since the beginning of the festival, provided the perfect opportunity to bring it all to life. Additionally, my friend, Staley Clark, who had performed an art song of mine earlier in the festival, agreed to sing. Finally, our friend Hazel Musto kindly agreed to play the piano part. I composed three movements, each setting a quote from LGBTQ+ pioneers that particularly resonated with me.
The project was an incredibly rewarding experience. It was a chance to collaborate closely with friends, both composers and performers, while creating an artwork that recognized the difficulties with which queer individuals have struggled and continue to struggle.