JOHN LIBERATORE
composer

A musical monodrama in five parts, Owl In Five Stories adapts Arnold Lobel's Owl at Home for narrator and chamber ensemble.

Lobel's magic lies in his ability to speak, with incredibly simple language, to the adults within children, and the inner-children within adults.  Like many, I grew up with the stories of Frog and Toad, Mouse Soup, and so many others, but Owl and his adventures at home have stayed with me in a special way.  Whether Owl lets winter into the house or makes friends with the moon, his escapades are silly and whimsical on the surface, but each story touches on a deeper theme: an active imagination can be scary, you can’t be in two places at once, it’s always best to be kind, even when you’re not treated kindly in return, and “it’s always a little sad to say good-bye to a friend.”  My favorite, perhaps, is “Tear Water-Tea,” that shows the healing power of a cathartic cry.  Just as a poet finds beauty in the mundane, Lobel teases out the sadness in familiar things: “chairs with broken legs,” or “mornings nobody saw, because everybody was sleeping.”  All at once, these stories are silly, wholesome, poignant, and profound.

 

With Owl in Five Stories, I am delighted to offer this musical setting for my favorite children’s book and grateful to the estate of Arnold Lobel for granting me permission to do so.  I like to think I’ve created something that Lobel himself might have enjoyed. I’ve tried to capture the beautiful simplicity of his language that still manages to be so many things at once.   I am especially grateful to Emlyn Johnson and Daniel Ketter, founders of the American Wild Ensemble, for envisioning this project and commissioning the work, as well as and their advocacy of new music and children’s literature.  This piece is dedicated to my daughter Grace, who represents another generation touched by Lobel’s kind spirit and wondrous imagination.