The Bunny Planet (2021) for soprano and string orchestra

Toward the end of my undergraduate career at Stetson University, my voice teacher Dr. Karen Coker Merritt expressed an interest in commissioning a piece from me. During our time of study, Dr. Merritt was consistently supportive of not only my vocal but also my compositional studies, teaching my works to her students and attending concerts and readings of other pieces. Thus, I gladly accepted the honor of such a collaboration.

We spoke of setting text from Voyage to the Bunny Planet by Rosemary Wells, which Dr. Merritt mentioned she reads to her son. I recalled reading (and watching) another bunny-driven story by Ms. Wells, Max and Ruby, when I was a child. The resulting nostalgia further drew my interest to the text. I contacted Ms. Wells to ask for permission to use the text and had the privilege to have a meaningful and inspiring conversation with the author. My sincerest gratitude to Ms. Wells for her kindness, wisdom, and generosity.

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This setting focuses on the dream portion of each chapter, in which different bunny children are rescued from tough days. Janet, the Bunny Queen from the Bunny Planet, bestows such dreams of “days that should have been” on the children. After Janet’s introduction in the first movement, singing through harmonically evolving textures, each of the three bunny children’s dreams are narrated. Each song explores the imagery and emotion of the poetry and is driven by a folk-inspired vocal melody. In “First Tomato,” pizzicato figures imitate the plucked-string sound of a guitar, further connecting to inspiration from folk music—what I pictured this bunny child would sing while going out into the summer garden. “Moss Pillows” plays on the idea of an unspoken character, often hiding in the orchestra and leaving “footprints in the sand” to signal to the listener that someone has indeed “wandered by.” The final song “The Island Light” is inspired by Impressionist depictions of the sea—since this bunny child lives next to the sea, I illustrate its waves with chromatic triplet figures. As the storm continues, the child and his father find rest and comfort inside their home, so the intensity of the figure calms down and dissipates into a sound color akin to the introductory movement.