Set to Haikus, a poem by Basque poet Tzaro Etxebarria Clemente, this nine-minute-long song was my first attempt to set to music poetry in a language that I do not speak. I have been fascinated with the Basque language for years, as it is the only language in Europe of pre-Indo-European origin and, when the opportunity presented itself for me to work with Basque texts, I took it. The song was a gift to two musician-friends, soprano Nora Franco Madariaga and percussionist Conrado Moya Sanchez who gave its premiere performance during their concert in the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain in the autumn of 2018.
