Sidney M. Boquiren, PhD, crafted his song cycle from verses by students from third grade to high school.
Poetry and song can carry the wisdom of the ages, but Department of Music Professor Sidney M. Boquiren, PhD, working with Opera Omaha in Nebraska, is making sure it’s an all-ages show.
Now in its seventh year, Opera Omaha’s Poetry & Music Project invites students from across Nebraska and Iowa to submit work on a given theme. This spring, Dr. Boquiren was one of two composers invited to set to music poems written by students ranging from elementary through high school.
The project isn’t a competition, Dr. Boquiren said, but a collaboration in which the composers select poems that speak to them. “We’re not saying this poem is better than that poem. We’re just selecting what works better with our compositional perspective.”
This year’s cycle began in fall 2023, when Opera Omaha and the Nebraska Writers Collective put out the call for submissions on the theme “Discovery.” More than 470 students entered the program and, ultimately, just over 100 of them submitted final work. Dr. Boquiren and fellow composer Amber Vistein, PhD, then set about the tough job of weeding the submissions down to what would constitute a concert of under an hour and working with the young poets to realize their verses in song.
Then, in April, Opera Omaha singers performed the completed works for an audience of the young poets, their families and friends, and literary locals looking to discover the next generation of Midwestern bards. A program book at the concert included all the submissions.
“The program is really wonderful,” said Dr. Boquiren, who has already been invited to return for the 2025 round. “It’s a yearlong project. In the fall, they have mentors who work with young poets across Iowa and Nebraska to make their poetry more musical. Then they submit their poetry for consideration.”
Finding Their Way Home
As Dr. Boquiren worked through his selections, he noticed a theme beyond the given one of “Discovery”: home.
“I created a song cycle,” he said. “There’s a theme across my seven songs. There is a connection to home. Either home is mentioned explicitly or it can be read into each of the seven poems.”
Then came the revisions. Dr. Boquiren met with the young poets in video conferences to fine-tune the songs before heading to Omaha.
“The changes ranged from really defining the tempos all the way to ‘Oh, I didn’t like the way this line went into the next line,’ and I had to put in a measure or two,” he said. “I had one intention but the poet understood their work differently, and it’s their work.”
What became the penultimate song in Seven Songs of Discovery was a “poem about self-confidence, very simple, five lines, so it contrasted well with the others while encapsulating the theme,” Dr. Boquiren said.
Third grader Jackson Rios’s brief “It Is What It Is” read simply:
“I’ve grown, I’ve changed
I’ve learned, I’ve loved
I’ve hoped, I’ve needed
I’ve discovered all the things I needed to know who I am,
how I am, what I am.”
Out of the mouths of babes, they say, comes wisdom. And sometimes it’s sung.