Council for Wisconsin Writers President Geoff Gilpin notes that Wisconsin poet Lorine Niedecker, for whom the CWW Norine Niedecker Poetry Award is named, got a mention in an unusual place: the year-end roundup of best classical music recordings in the New York Times: Classical Critics Pick the Top Music Recordings of 2014 [Dec. 18, 2014]
“There’s a new album (“Chamber Music”) by British composer Harrison Birtwistle that includes settings of Niedecker poems,” Geoff says. “It’s not on Spotify, but here’s a quote from Amazon:
‘Settings of the writings of US Objectivist poet Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970), scored for soprano and cello in 1998 and 2000, begin and close the album. As Bayan Northcott writes in the booklet, These concentrated songs demand the utmost of their performers in precision, expression and timing. As in Webern’s settings, the few words and notes on the page can seem to imply whole worlds of thought and feeling.’”
See more about the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award and other CWW’s contests at http://www.wiswriters.org/rules.htm. These contests for 2014 work by Wisconsin writers are open for entries until midnight, Jan. 31, 2015.