The Animals
for baritone and piano
3. Stork
We sold the stork a story.
We gave the stork its name.
Its voice, a clattering of bills.
We traced the sweep of its wings.
We could see, in the rookery of the storks,
in colonies of pelican and of crane,
in the short flight of parent after parent
to their chicks, outflying the night,
how these birds, so starkly ungainly on land,
can hold up such beauty in the air.
Written during the summer of 2009, The Animals is a cycle of nine songs written and dedicated to Stephen Swanson, who premiered them in
October of that year. Poet Marvin Bell created the texts specifically for this cycle. The work not only takes inspiration from the Ravel
and Poulenc animal songs, but is also rooted in the American tradition: Gershwin's Tin Pan Alley, and more recently the songs of
William Bolcom.