BELIEVE ME (2020, Revised 2023)
Instrumentation: SATB chorus
Duration: 5'
Composer: Ryan Homsey
Text: Susan Kouguell
Premiere: New Haven Oratorio Choir on April 24, 2021 (Virtual)
BELIEVE ME is a creative and collaborative response to our current social moment. BELIEVE ME is a five-minute work for SATB a cappella voices that draws inspiration from Gregorian Chant and Renaissance polyphony while using contemporary harmony, musical texture, and text.
“The concert concluded with “Believe Me,” by Ryan Homsey, working off a text by Susan Kouguell. Its call for empathy made use of a series of overlapping voices and musical ideas that gradually drew together toward a powerful conclusion.”
Program Note
BELIEVE ME is a conversation. A secular spiritual contemplation. A dialogue with overlapping voices, and singular voices in a monologue of expression; all voices challenge the right to be heard in an era where dismissal continues to exist.
The text is a deconstruction of the agency and consequences of language, and the impact of each word conveyed. Syntax and changing tenses underscore how meaning changes for each voice, as they listen or not listen to each other.
There are spaces in the text to enable room for introspection and for listeners to impose their own stories.
At the core of the piece are three thematic voices: The PAST (the doubter/trying to be heard), the PRESENT (the negative questioning), and the FUTURE (positive empowering).
The text asserts that being heard and acknowledged are not just contemporary catchphrases but at its root, it is a shared and layered universal discussion that can no longer be silenced.
Ryan Homsey and Susan Kouguell discuss their piece BELIEVE ME
BELIEVE ME Text
A conversation. A spiritual contemplation.
The doubter/trying to be heard
PAST
The negative questioning
PRESENT
Positive empowering
FUTURE
Believe me
This is my story
My history
Do not ignore me
Listen to me
Listless
It does matter?
Who will I become
Breath
Drifted
Lifted
I am a storyteller
We are our stories
LISTEN TO ME LISTENING TO YOU
DID YOU HEAR THAT
CAN YOU HEAR EVERY WORD I AM SAYING
DO YOU KNOW WHERE I AM COMING FROM
NO MORE COMPLACENCY
LISTEN TO ME LISTEN TO YOU
THIS IS MY STORY
BELIEVE ME
Listlessness
Powerlessness
Not again
as for me…
Who will we become
breathing
Drift
Lifting
What was your story
We are your stories
I CAN HEAR YOU
I CAN HEAR ME
I HEAR YOU
DO YOU KNOW WHERE I CAME FROM
DO YOU KNOW
DO YOU UNDERSTAND
NO MORE COMPLACENCY
I HEAR YOU
MY STORY
BELIEVE ME
Powerful
Never again
Never again
Less, less, less
It does matter…
for us
We will be
breathe
drifting
No longer adrift
No longer adrift
Your history
We are you
I AM YOU
NO MORE COMPLACENCY
I CARE
I REALLY DO CARE
NO MORE COMPLACENCY
I AM LISTENING
THIS IS MY STORY
BELIEVE ME
Copyright © 2020 by Susan Kouguell
All rights reserved.
About Susan Kouguell
Susan Kouguell, writer and award-winning filmmaker, continues to combine her passions of poetry and music in her recent choral collaboration with composer Ryan Homsey.
“PraiseMaker,” her first commissioned choral text for composer Alvin Singleton, premiered at the Cincinnati May Festival under the direction of James Conlon with numerous subsequent performances across the country, including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Robert Spano. The piece is included on the album Singing Rooms (Telarc/Concord Records). Additional choral text commissions include “The World Is Here With Me,” for Alvin Singleton and “Braver” for Jonathan Elliott.
As a writer and filmmaker, Kouguell received numerous grants and fellowships from such organizations MacDowell, Edward Albee Foundation, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS), Brooklyn Arts and Cultural Association, and Artist’s Space.
As a classically trained orchestral violist, Kouguell is a musician in her own right, having performed nationally and internationally with several New York-based symphonies.