We woke up to thunder, the sky was turning green

The weatherman said “Take cover”, so we did

And the rain made rainbows on the ground

The sun shone on a tapestry of blue

We waited until the days were equal

And there were just as many sunny ones as dark

We waited for the seeds that we had planted to take root

Before they washed away again

Spring was a long time coming, we watched the wildflowers bloom

And we could see things differently

Blue, orange, pink, yellow

White, magenta, red, purple

We thought the season had changed, well, maybe it hasn’t

And I’m starting to believe maybe it never will

But every so often, the clouds clear for a moment

And new green life is visible

Spring was a long time coming, we watched the wildflowers bloom

And we could see things differently

Our first April.

Text by the composer, ©2017, 2022 Marjorie Halloran Music (ASCAP)

Program note | Starting around late March/early April, the hill country of central Texas explodes into multicolored bloom as millions of wildflowers appear on every highway and roadside. Inspired in large part by Lady Bird Johnson’s love of the natural beauty of Texas, the Highway Beautification Act was signed into law in 1965, and the Texas Department of Transportation sows about 30,000 pounds of wildflower seeds every year to ensure future growth. When I moved to Texas, the first year was difficult as I acclimated to a new culture and environment. I found solace in the beauty of these wildflowers that first April, and this song was the result of that experience.

The wildflowers depicted in the song, in order of color:

Blue: Bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis)

Orange: Indian paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa)

Pink: Pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa )

Yellow: Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta )

White: Blackfoot daisy (Melampodium leucanthum)

Magenta: Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata)

Red: Fire wheel (Gaillardia pulchella)

Purple: Prairie verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida)

http://www.wildflower.org

O Lord, I want to buy her a diamond!
O Lord, I want to buy her a ring!
But I ain't got no money, no I ain't got no money,
no I ain't got no money and my arm's in a sling.

Cain't work for to make my livin';
broke my arm clean through haulin' Georgia wood.
Now my gal is way down in Lumpkin County,
and I cain't afford no ticket and this arm's no good.

(Refrain)

My life is full of constant heartache,
but I think, O Lord, that I've found the cure:
she's a pretty little red-headed vixen from Georgia.
She tempts me to evil and my heart ain't pure.

So I've found us a Preacher Man.
He will say the words on our wedding day.
But my arm is broken and he charged me a dollar.
He'll preach no sermon if I cain't afford to pay.

(Refrain)

Thank the Lord, He fin'lly healed my affliction.
I'm headed south by train down from Tennessee.
Lord, I pray before the wedding that You keep me holy
cause I'm bound to do some evil now my arm got free.

O Lord, I done bought her a diamond!
O Lord, I done bought her a ring!
But I ain't all that holy,
Lord, I ain't all that holy
No, I ain't all that holy since the Lord healed me!
No, I ain't all that holy since the Lord healed me!

Program note | I spent many of my most formative years living in Dahlonega, GA, a wonderful small town in Lumpkin County nestled in the mountains of north Georgia. Dahlonega is known for its festivals, folk art, and bluegrass music, all of which permeate the atmosphere of the town's beautiful courthouse square and neighboring University of North Georgia. In 1828, Dahlonega was the epicenter of a major gold rush, spawning many stories and legends, as well as the oft-repeated phrase "There's gold in them thar hills!" Dear Appalachia is a set of three fictional songs inspired by my childhood home, two of which I was honored to record with Salt Creek, a bluegrass band made up of some great grad school buddies. Dear Appalachia is an homage to the vistas and woodland trails which form many of the most treasured memories of my youth.—Timothy Michael Powell

Program note | The oratorio I Belong to You/Motherland finds its beginnings in a conversation I had with Robbie LaBanca in early 2019. I’d been working out an idea for nearly a year, at that point, to construct an oratorio for Inversion based on a fantasy story. I thought it would be great to commission an author to write the narrative and have different artists create images for various parts of the story to project on a screen while the music was performed. When I finally brought up the concept to Robbie, he immediately suggested we work with an author and an artist to create a comic book for source material. It was the missing piece I’d been searching for. Robbie used connections from his days working in the comics world to reach out to author Greg Pak, who, to my surprise, was instantly on board.

Greg is best known for telling stories about superheroes, like the Hulk, and about villains like Darth Vader. Over the next year, discussions between those of us in Inversion and Greg revealed that Greg was pulling us in a very different direction. It was becoming apparent that his life story, particularly his childhood in Texas, was the one he wanted and needed to tell. When someone of Greg’s reputation is as passionate as he was about a concept, you go with it! Each draft of the script was progressively more personal and profound. Because this work was starting to feel so important, I believed the creation of the music for the oratorio was an experience best shared by the three co-founders of Inversion, Robbie, Adrienne Inglis, and me. We understand one another and we quickly recognize the quirks present in each other’s musical language. I’ve often said that there is a deep sense of responsibility for a composer when setting the words of a living author, but to work on something like this, something that meant so much to Greg, was an onus impelling the three of us to a degree we seldom encounter. As the artwork from the artists Greg had chosen to illustrate his story started trickling in, we only found ourselves more inspired.

After assigning sections of the text to each of the three composers, I wrote some simple four-to-eight measure themes we could individually incorporate to keep some related threads tying our very different compositional styles together. We had the advantage of knowing that Invoke would be joining us from the start, even before we knew what this project was going to be. Their musical flexibility and ability to swap instruments added an extra element of joy to the creative process, as did the later addition of my brother, steel guitarist Ethan Shaw.

The final product is sometimes beautifully simple, sometimes harshly challenging. It must be that way when telling the story of a person’s life, and all the more so when exploring the bigger concept of belonging. I Belong to You/Motherland asks us what it means to feel welcome in your homeland and who the people are that make us feel that way. It asks us to look again with fresh eyes upon the world we grew up in- the people, the culture, the animals, plants, and weather.

I’m unashamed to say I’m proud of what we’ve created and I’m proud of Inversion for so fully bringing it to life. Many thanks to Greg Pak and to all who made this production possible.

Trevor F. Shaw
June 2022

Soloists — Carol Brown, Rosa Mondragon-Harris

Picture the boy

Caught in his mother’s camera

Small but sturdy

Browned by the sun

Gazing with unreadable eyes

At the mockingbird chick on his wrist

Observing (the bird)

Observed (by his mother)

Taking it in

Being taken in

Quietly enfolded protected guided beloved

The mockingbird fell from the hanging plant where its mother built her nest

Someday you will fall through the cracks in the nest I have built

Together we will return this bird to its nest

Together we will prepare you for the day you fly free

Who’s singing to whom

(Who’s singing to whom)

(Who’s singing to whom)

No one says this out loud

But we’re all preparing the ones we love

For flying and dying

(Flying and dying)

(Flying and dying)

Soloist — Gregory Hilliard

Texas

Impossibly huge sky

Deepest blue

Whitest clouds

Blazing, burning, unbearable heat

That you don’t even think about when you’re seven

(Don’t even think)

(Don’t even think)

Just

Running wild

Tearing open your knees a hundred times and crying and jumping up again because who cares

(Who cares)

(Who cares)

Laughing and tumbling

Burned and peeling

Ripping through the world

Then pulling up short, staring

As the swan on the lake

Kills baby ducklings

And snapping turtles drag them down from below

Rabbit torn to pieces

Intestines in the front yard

Sharp-eyed hawk on the utility pole

Dalmatians down the street

Unleashed, staring hungrily from their porch

Cottonmouth coiled thick on the rocks

Kill it or die

Found the scales of an alligator gar on the muddy bank

Like shark teeth hundreds of miles from the sea

Dinosaurs among us

A world of glories and monsters

Living and dying

Glories and monsters

Thriving and killing

We barrel together through dirt and sun

Exploring dreaming bonding belonging

Fellowship danger adventure joy

The kids I know are awesome

It’s the new kids

I have to watch out for

Merry-go-round

Smells like iron and blood

A friend takes my hand

Another kid yells “fag”

Visiting a church

Kid stares with sharp eyes

Says he was pretty sure I was Jewish

Pack of Cub Scouts in the park

I’m a Cub Scout, too!

I run over, hand raised

And they surround me

“Chinese Japanese dirty knees”

I’m Korean, you fucking racists

Sitting at a park bench at Boy Scout camp in the blazing heat

carving lines down the sides of a swastika someone else gouged in the gray wood

to turn it into four innocuous squares

They don’t know what I am

Just that I’m different

Just different enough

Walking home, burning with anger

Stepping inside, away from the heat

No matter how bright the electric lights are

It’s dark in the house

When you leave the blazing white sun

My mother calls from the kitchen

Years later she tells me she remembers

Her boy coming home silent and angry

But never knowing why

I say nothing out loud

Only to myself

(I belong)

(I belong)

(I belong)

(I belong)

In my mom’s photographs

I’m squatting in the grass

Peering at an invisible bug

She’s not in the photo

But this is a picture of her

Brimming with love

Studying her beautiful boy

Who’s studying this beautiful world

She saved this moment

So we can return to it forever

And remember what it felt like to be so kind and open and new

Look

Look!

And look at that!

Gregory, look at that!

Big vegetable garden in the front yard

The FRONT yard

Sunflowers

Mighty rows of corn

Zinnias and marigolds all summer long

Pansies in the fall

Dazzled strangers pull over to take pictures

Kohlrabi

(Which we pronounced colla robby)

Did anyone else in the whole state grow and eat that?

My father hunched in the loam

Dead dirt he kneaded and nurtured year after year

Until it gave back so much glory

White T-shirt, black socks

They thought he was a Japanese gardener

Working working working

Glorious explosion of asparagus

Do you know how many years it takes to grow that kind of patch?

He did this

Alone in that yard

Always there when he wasn’t at his desk

Just few yards away from us

Like the cat he hated but who followed him across the yard

Never looking at him

But never more than twenty feet away, lolling in the sun

A stunning, silent accomplishment

But all I see is the crabgrass

Henbit

Dandelion

The weeds I’m supposed to tear from the lawn

Why are they weeds?

(Why am I here?)

Aren’t they pretty?

(Am I in trouble?)

Shouldn’t they live?

(Or more to the point why am I here instead of in my warm bed reading a book?)

Seething under my father’s watch

Ingrate

No thanks given in this Thursday rain

Soloist — Melody Chang

Glories and monsters

And heroes

My father gives me a Swiss Army knife

Swords and daggers

Be prepared

I immediately cut open my finger

Then wrap the wound in toilet paper

My father follows the trail of blood

And finds me hiding in bed

He doesn’t yell

He takes me to the emergency room

And they give me three stitches

I’m sobbing

But the doctor says I’m brave and calls me tiger

Wrong monster

This is Texas

Maybe hawk

Coyote

Javelina

But my father laughs and takes me home

From the other room I hear him chuckling as he repeats the story to my mother

Tiger

Brave

Good boy

I’m not in trouble

Not in trouble

Not in trouble

I belong

I belong

I belong

Soloists — Katrina Saporsantos, Robbie LaBanca

Hot fucking sun blazing off the creek bed’s white rock

Dry mouth

Drone of cicadas

Walking through cool, rippling water

Nothing to drink

Don’t like the weather?

Wait fifteen minutes

Wait fifteen--

Oh wait I meant five

Monstrous explosion of sound and light

We should have been terrified

(Who cares)

(Who cares)

But we laughed and ran, arms spread, letting the rain soak us through

No adult ever thought to stop us

“You won’t melt”

And we didn’t

Fearless, immortal

Waiting for the bus in a downpour

Hiking miles in the rain

Soaked through

Each foot caked with ten pounds of mud

I wasn’t fast

I wasn’t strong

But I could endure

Great cracks echo across the lake

Branches sheathed in ice

Trunks split asunder

The tree’s so huge it seems like it should live forever

But willows are fragile

Saw it diminish, year by year, ripping and falling

Came home from college and it was gone

Cedar elms

Tricky raking up all those tiny, hard leaves

One year they vanished, too

But my parents kept the live oaks

Long twisty branches, low to the ground

Middle Earth

Every decade another great limb falls

But the tree endures

Soloist — Jennifer Wang

The bed of the dusty truck in the next door driveway

Is filled with corpses

Pronghorns

White tail deer

Javelinas

Antlers and tusks and hooves

The man shows us his hand and grins

Three of his five fingers are missing their tips

Snapping turtle

Lawn mower

He doesn’t tell the story behind the third

Glories and monsters and heroes

Looking under rocks

Lift it up facing away from you

Portuguese Man ‘o War dead on the beach

Stab it with a stick and my arm goes numb

Standing in the motel room

As my parents sit on the bed, reading the field guide

Swimmers, tentacles, stingers

Paralyzed

Drowning

I take a breath

Goosebumped, feeling the sand drying on my skin

“Am I going to die?”

My parents look up, faces blank

Then laugh and laugh and laugh

I think I smile

But I don’t get the joke

So many things in this state could kill you

Poison ivy

Stinging nettles

Greenbriar

Water moccasins

(The kid who showed us his father’s gun)

Alligators

Copperheads

Scorpions

Wolf spiders

Black widows

(The principal who drilled holes in his paddle to make it hurt more)

Yellowjackets

Wasps

Bees

Mosquitos

Chiggers

Ticks

(The drunk drivers the creeps whoever killed that poor girl at the donut store that one scout troop that branded kids on their arms and all the other things we saw but never spoke of)

Asps

Fire ants

Giant water bugs

Whatever it was in that pond that made everyone itchy as hell

Soloist — Steve Young

Down in the creek

Wading past fluorescent blue liquid draining from a concrete pipe

That adenoma in my jaw

Did it come from Texas?

(And what about the mercury we rolled in our palms?)

(The lead we filed from our goblin figurines?)

(The dust we inhaled while sanding old paint?)

Or is it all unrelated

And what did not kill us

Made us impossibly strong?

Even our pets were vicious

Baby largemouth bass in a 10 gallon tank

Inhaling everything it could fit in its jaws

The tail of a fish nearly its size

Jutting from its mouth while it digested the head

Crawdad walking down the hallway like it owned the joint

Jack Dempseys and bluegills wolfing crickets and June bugs whole

Beautiful baby catfish

Sleek and sinuous

With those terrible spines

Catch one from the ocean and it might paralyze your arm

(Am I gonna die?)

At Big Bend and Monahans

My mom photographs us

Running, laughing, beaming

Peering into rotten logs

Poking in the sand

Look

Look

Look

Look at this!

But lift the rock

Facing away from you

Soloist — Steve Young

110 Instamatic

The first photograph I ever took?

Hard to make out in grainy black and white

But that’s a cottonmouth caught on a fishing line

Body wrapped around waterlogged willow sticks

That it desperately collected, trying to prevent me from dragging it from the water

I killed it with a rock

So much killing

All entirely normal

Smashing a horsefly

Watching hundreds of tiny wriggling maggots emerge

Cutting up scorpions

With the knife my father returned to me

Slaughtering dozens of sunfish and crappie

Pouring them into the sink, cutting their spines

Fileting and frying

Catching grasshoppers

Pulling off their legs

Roasting them over a tiny fire in the backyard, eating the fat hindleg meat

Knocking down wasp nests, then running, screaming, laughing

We prowled like wolf cubs

Adorable, sharp, and hungry

Bonding through mayhem

Anything poisonous deserved to die

Anything you could eat was fair game

All entirely normal

More knives

A cheap silver pocketknife from one of those grabber games that no one wins

How did I snag that sleek, smooth thing with those metal claws?

A miraculous sign for a hero

Carving his place in the world

A buck knife

An old sheath knife with a deer bone handle

A giant Swiss Army hunting knife

A three foot curved sabre and matching dagger with green velvet sheaths that I bought at the State Fair of Texas at the age of thirteen

I tied them to the foot of my bed

Over a carrion crest of bleached bones and feathers

That I hauled home from woods and fields

All entirely normal

Monsters to the blade

Insects, fish, reptiles, all subject to murder

But songbirds and mammals are nurtured and treasured

Sad eyed raccoon cub wasting away

Baby opossum with a broken back

Lying in the gutter on a bed of fallen flowers, staring up at me with liquid eyes

Looking up as the truck hits the bunny

Running out to watch it die

Could we eat this, too?

Don’t touch the dead.

Bluejays, cardinals, robins

Cedar waxwings, passing through

We put out a house for swallows

Watched the sparrows take it over

Dropping babies fatter than themselves

But not even the birds were innocent

The cat slouches across the lawn

Harried by screaming gray and white

The State Bird

The Mockingbird

The Legislature called him “a fighter for the protection of his home, falling, if need be, in its defense, like any true Texan”

Ridiculous

Would I fall to protect my home?

I’d grab my mother’s hand and run

(Flying and dying)

(Flying and dying)

I want to live

I want us all to live

Look at the grackle

Sleek and sharp with that long paddle tail

Another hundred thousand years and those feathers might plume and fan

Shimmering with weird iridescence

More mineral than flesh and blood

To each other’s eyes they blaze with impossible colors

Bold and proud and ridiculously loud

Like a machine, a mechanical distortion, a cracking sheet of metal

Untouchable, immortal

Make the grackle the state bird

I want that voice

I want that tail

I want to blaze with those colors

But I never held a grackle on my wrist

As my mother held her breath and released the shutter

Together we will return this bird to its nest

Soloists — Rosa Mondragon-Harris, Juliane Orlandini, Aaron Bourgeois

South Texas

Dip netting in the salt marshes

Gulf killifish, gambusia

Stunned by the shimmer of iridescent blue

On the head of the male sheepshead minnow

On the tail of the male sailfin molly

Just a fragment of the brilliant sheen of the tropical fish I bought from the aquarium store

But these come from here

Texas

Where I belong

(I belong?)

Running at night

Longer, taller, stronger

Three miles to the school and back

A girl I know stops in her big car

She talks to me - smiles

I smile back

And then keep on running

Laughing softly at myself

I didn’t know what to do when the window opened

But I breathe deep the cold air

It’s still so early

(Seventeen)

Anything feels possible

(Immortal)

Late Friday night

Other kids are dating

But I don’t have a car

Still too scared to ask the girl out

And too proud to ask my mom to drive us

So I’m sitting in the playroom

Writing in my spiral notebook journal

(Poems)

With my buck forty nine drugstore fountain pen

(Dear Lord, so many poems)

Watching a storm roll towards the house

Dark, roiling clouds

Impossibly fast but somehow in slow motion

Stunning, booming thunder

I’m alone

But thrilled

(Seventeen)

(Immortal)

The whole world is here

I belong

I belong

I belong

Still a Scout

Now leading my patrol through the woods

Bodark tree dropping horse apples

Great round fruit evolved for some long-lost herbivore

Mammoths in the scrub

Spiky lumps on the trunks

We used to chew the bark for that tingly numbness

Made a wizard’s staff from a sapling

Follow me

Follow me

Listen to my wisdom

Emerging from the trees to a gulch filled with weeds

But how can you just call them weeds?

Spectacular, tree-high plants with impossibly broad leaves

Velvetleaf, originally from China, cultivated for long, tough fibers and used to make rope and fabric

What’s it doing here in Dallas?

What’s it doing decades later on my street in New York City?

Surging up from cracks in the sidewalk

Huge, resilient, persistent

But don’t fucking call it invasive

Japanese beetles

Asian carp

Chinese virus

Dirty knees, what are these?

English ivy is an invasive species, too

The Mexican ranch hands ask my father if I’m Mexican

Excuse me, are you Jewish?

Arab?

Nez Perce?

Each time I’m almost proud

Then embarrassed at the impulse

I’m not a wizard

This isn’t Middle Earth

I lived in Dallas on Caddo, Comanche, and Wichita land

I live in New York on Lenape land

Theft and grief in every mile

I mumble the acknowledgements in the zoom

Feeling like a fraud

Because I am

Write some fucking checks

(Seriously)

(Note to self)

(Write some more checks)

I belong I belong I belong

Is what I’ve longed for

for so long

This land isn’t my land

It doesn’t belong to me

But I still belong to it?

Statement and a question

How to separate belonging from possession

Soloists — Trevor Shaw, Erin Yousef, Katrina Saporsantos

It’s been years since I

Stood in the rain

Burned in the sun

Gutted a fish

Watched a rabbit die

Back home at twenty two

Wearing pointy-toed cowboy boots

Bought ‘em here in Texas

But these are city kid shoes with slick leather soles

I’m not hiking through fields

I’m not slogging through mud

Not sweating under the sun

Not even riding my bike

I’m driving

So much driving

Hours and hours at the drop of a hat

(An actual cowboy hat, first one I ever owned, black 2X, too embarrassed to actually ever wear it in public)

My first adult job

Field coordinator for thirty eight West Texas counties

On the phone someone hears “Pach” when I say “Pak” and says I must be Dutch

And I just smile and grunt

And burn with shame for my silence

My friends must have their own stories

Black, Jewish, Mexican American, gay…

(We belong)

(We belong)

(We…?)

And yes we get in those cart and drive

And hope

And drive

And hope

Roaring west at eighty miles an hour

Seven hours later, you still haven’t hit the border

Nothing but vast flatness

A tarantula crawls across the road

I see it clearly from a hundred feet away, as if it were the size of a cat

(Mammoth in the scrub)

The only thing in sight, moving in slow motion

Sudden buzzard rising up from roadkill, passing six inches from my windshield

And the stench of carrion fills my sealed car

(Glory and monsters)

Standing with old white liberal ladies at sunset

So hard and wistful all at once

But drinking in those gilded clouds

“Say what you want about Texas.

“But we got the best skies.”

Look

Look, Gregory

East and south

The River Walk

Swordtails gliding along the bank

Tropical fish from Mexico

Selectively bred to a brilliant red

Just two inches in the stores

But here they’re three or four

Never saw them so giant and bright

I don’t live anywhere for more than a few months at a time

No minnows in my bedroom

But I wish I had a net

Then Austin to Dallas

Leave at eight, get there before noon, whole day ahead of you

Hi Grandpa

He’s stuck inside at the home

Eyes failing

I sent him a cassette tape I made on the road

Did he ever listen to it?

Only my mother would know

Too late to ask her now.

One year the streets were filled with crape myrtles

“Dallas Red”

Glorious color all up ‘til winter

Had they always been there?

Why don’t I remember them?

What else did I never see

Or forget?

Soloists — Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon, Nathaniel Fomby

Fucking pandemic

Stuck in the apartment in New York City

In the early days we thought a jogger left a fifty foot toxic plume

Never go outside

So I’m huddled in bed, aching and sweaty, watching YouTube videos of kids in Houston catching mollies, gambusia, and cichlids

And when the fever finally passes

I build back my strength

By cleaning my biggest aquarium

And moving the last few tetras to a smaller tank

These are gentle, soft water fish from South American rainforests

They’re not ready for this

I study water parameters

Alkalinity

Hardness

Buffering

I pay fifty dollars for a box of white rocks from Texas

Worth every cent

And I mail order sheepshead minnows

Still a fucking pandemic

(Forever a fucking pandemic)

They’re delayed by days

But when I open the box

They’re alive

And they thrive

I’m thrilled when the first fry appear

I laugh to friends through my screens

So strange that I’d be so obsessed with these tanks

A tiny, beautiful, controllable environment

In the middle of all this chaos?

What conceivable attraction could that hold?

I don’t carry a knife any longer

Toothless

Clawless

Naked to the world

Flying home for the first time since the virus hit

The clown beside me won’t cover his nose

So I’m wearing a T-shirt over my mask like a bandana

Taking a cab, all windows down

Hot wind in my face

In the cool house, my mother is dying.

Outside, a cat darts across the lawn with a wood duckling in its jaws

I run and yell

The duckling drops

Feathers matted with blood

And bolts for cover

Kids stand under the blazing sun, staring at something I can’t see

It’s the duckling, sitting in the grass, its beak opening and closing, head twisting and thrashing

I tell the kids they don’t need to see this

And they immediately trot away

But I squat there and watch

Until it takes its last breath and lies still

Look

Look, Gregory.

Taking my walk in the morning

Because by nine it’s too fucking hot

And I’m so far from seven years old

(Who cares)

(Who cares)

(Who cares)

The sun could kill me now

There’s a new pathway along the creek

And new fences and barriers

I find a gap

Work my way down to the water

Walk along the white rock shore

And I find a perfect stone

With a tiny, perfect hole

Look

Look

Look at this, Mom

I know you

I remember you

I long for you

I belong to you

Back in New York

Gazing at the minnows in my tank

Only two left

Four died in the two months I was gone

They’re supposed to be so tough

Surviving in the most toxic water

Where did they go?

Why did they go?

Maybe it was just old age

Maybe it’s not my fault

(Not my fault)

(Not my fault)

(Please Jesus not my fault)

Maybe it’s just

Maybe

Maybe

Duckling twisting its neck

Beak opening and closing opening and closing

Rabbit on the side of the road

Tiniest blade of grass floating down to rest on its unblinking eye

I drop the perfect rock

And a chip flakes off

So fragile

I remember how we used to smash shards of chalk in the creek

Suddenly it feels like I could crush this stone to dust in my bare hand

Chest tight

Eyes so dry I know the tears are coming

But I glue the chip back into place

Imperfect

You’ll always see the seam

(Look)

But the next day I hold it in my hand

(Look…)

and it helps me think of you

(Look, Gregory!)

I know you

I remember you

I long for you

I belong to you

I know you

I remember you

I long for you

I belong to you

I know you

I remember you

I long for you

I belong to you

SOPRANO

Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon

Carol Brown

Jennifer Wang

Juliane Orlandini

Suzette Emberton

ALTO

Adrienne Inglis

Deirdre Spainhour

Jennifer Inglis Hudson

Katrina Saporsantos

Marjorie Halloran

Rosa Mondragon Harris

TENOR

Aaron Bourgeois

Curtis White

Jonathan Riemer

Nathaniel Fomby

Robbie LaBanca

BASS

Brad Fanta

Evan Blaché

Emanuel Glenn Pruitt

Gregory Hilliard Jr

Isaac Arterburn

Joseph Choi

Steven Young

CODA

Diane Skeel

Jennifer Hymel

Kim Vitray

Laurie Willis

Lissa B. Anderson

Lynn Lindsay

Mary Virginia Simon

René Simone

Rich Spainhour

Sherrille Reed

Steven Collins

Dr. Thomas Kolenda

STAFF

Trevor Shaw, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor

Robbie LaBanca, Managing Director

Adrienne Inglis, Outreach Coordinator

Carol Brown, Production Director

Juli Orlandini, Art Director and Associate Conductor

Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon, Associate Conductor

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Kim Vitray, president

Lissa Anderson, secretary

Cathie Parsley, treasurer

April Patterson

Catherine Spainhour

Nancy Gray

Your gift of any size helps us continue to hire Austin’s finest musicians and artists, book accessible and convenient performance spaces with the best acoustics, and commission (and perform!) new, innovative choral works from emerging composers.

Many thanks to our individual, business, and sustaining donors for our sixth season!

*Sustaining Donor

New Music Champion $5,000+

Apple Inc.

Dragon's Lair LLC

New Music Advocate $2,500-4,999

Adrienne Inglis*

Austin Community Foundation

Carol Brown*

Catherine & Richard Spainhour*

Cathie Parsley & Gary Fuchs

Cigna

Expedia Group

Jennifer Inglis Hudson

Inversion Circle $1,000-2,499

Amy Suzette Emberton

Dana Houghton

Don Anderson

Juliane Orlandini

Kim Vitray

Lee Parsley

Robbie LaBanca*

Trevor Shaw

Verlaine Shaw

William Fivecoat

Conductor's Circle $500-999

(Anonymous)

Becky & Ted Mercado*

Bill & Lou Ann Lasher

Carmen Johnson*

Hewlett Packard

Jonathan Riemer

Lissa Anderson

Lynn Lindsay*

Marjorie Halloran

Composer's Circle $250-499

Andre Patterson

Bonnie Lockhart*

Cina Crisara

Claire Brehan

Donald Grantham

Garrett Gerard*

Google

Jennifer Wang

Jenny Houghton

Katrina Saporsantos*

Mary Simon

O. R. Schmidt

Robert Watkins

Steven Young

Verlaine Shaw

Singer's Circle $50-249

(Anonymous)

(Anonymous)

Adrienne Pedrotti

Amy Ostwald

André Trahan

Andrea Ware-Medina

Angela Tomasino

Ann Wilson

Bobbie Whitwell

Bradley Fanta

Caroline Frommhold

Claudia Carroll

Craig Johnson

Danny Johnson

Debra Watkins

Deidre Spainhour

Erin Sheehy

Evan Narcisse

Frank Carl Adkins

Georgina Hudspeth

Gloria and Paul Shinkawa

Gregory Eaton

Gretchen and David Riehl

Janice Morgan

Jean C Taxis

Jennifer Hymel

Joan Lunderville

Joanna Fried

John Thomason

Jon Lees

Joseph Choi

Joshua Chai

Kathleen Chai

Kelly Bradley

Kevin Dowell

Kimberly & Richard Collins

Kristina Weiss

Laurie Willis

Marilyn Plummer

Mary Brinkman

Mary Dye

Mary Kettlewell

Mary Matus

Maureen Papovich

Melanie McNearney

Melody Chang

Meri Liston

Michelle LaBanca*

Nancy Charbeneau

Nancy Ebert

Nancy Gray

Nancy McBride

Nick Duguid

Rambie Briggs

Rebecca Stidolph

Richard Gabrillo

Richard Senn

Rosa Harris

Russell Floyd

Sarah Loghin

Shawn Harrison

Sherrille Reed

Steven Cherry

Steven Serpa

Steven Sifner

Susan Abold

Susan Flowers

Susan Lewkow

Terri Floyd

Thomas Kolenda

Wilfred Van Gieson

Wravan E Godsoe

Donate today at www.inversionatx.org/donate