CAMEOS
a song group inspired by six American visual artists
Music by Juliana Hall - Poems by Molly Fillmore
Published in soprano and mezzo-soprano keys by E. C. Schirmer publishing group
Recorded on the album Bold Beauty by Molly Fillmore and Elvia Puccinelli, Blue Griffin Records
Songs:
1. Sarah Albritton
2. Kay WalkingStick
3. Nellie Mae Rowe
4. Alice Dalton Brown
5. Agnes Pelton
6. Corita Kent
About the Project
The idea for this cycle came while watching an episode of Antiques Roadshow on PBS. One of the pieces analyzed was a painting by a female American artist from the early 20th-century. She faced challenges with recognition due to her gender.
This inspired me to ask myself if there was something I, as a singer, could do to highlight some female American artists? I thought of the song group Le travail du peintre by Francis Poulenc and decided that there is good reason (and need) for a similar song group with female painters as its muse. Thus the creation of Cameos began.
About the Poems
The texts, stylistically inspired by Paul Éluard's texts in Le travail du peintre, are not written to be biographical or summarize an artist's life work. Such an ambitious task would not be practical in the context of an art song. Rather, the texts are meant to present a mood or a picture created by the artist.
​
All six women offer something new, individualistic, and beautiful with their art. My goal for the Cameos cycle was to draw attention to these wonderful visual artists. I encourage people to seek out information about their contributions to the visual arts.
