Kristina Marie Darling's poem Footnotes to a History of the Jewelry Box tells a story through ten brief footnotes, suggesting a mysterious, fictional account of a jewelry box given as a gift.

 

This musical setting of Darling's poem animates the wordless narrative that Darling has left up to a reader's imagination. In the piece,

the mezzo-soprano serves as a narrator of the footnotes themselves,

helping to bring Darling's beguiling and elusive poem to life.

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Footnotes to a History of the Jewelry Box was commissioned and premiered by Inscape Chamber Orchestra (Richard Scerbo, conductor;

Monica Soto-Gil, mezzo-soprano) on March 15, 2015 at Church of the Redeemer in Bethesda, MD. This piece was composed by Trumbore

while in residence at Copland House, Cortlandt Manor, New York,

as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award.