Emily's House

For women in her social class, music lessons and singing were routine aspects of home life. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) however, was a particularly keen amateur pianist, as evidenced by her letters and especially thick volume of sheet music. Her home resounded with her piano playing before it ever heard her poems.

When Dickinson began to write in 1850, she would eventually write close to 1800 poems. In them, she meditates on everything from the eternal beyond to Nature at our fingertips with a bite and charm that have earned her a place among the greatest of writers. Despite this boundless imagination, her home was her whole world. 

This concert presents two Dickinson song cycles, intertwined with the hymns and piano music that filled that space.