Sonder
Sonder was a collaboration with poet Kristen Nelson, written for Marea Ensemble and premiered during the Santa Cruz Chamber Players 2025-2026 Season.
Marea Ensemble is Lori Schulman, voice; Shannon D’Antonio and Samantha Bounkeua violins; Rebecca Dularte-Corbin, viola and Kristin Garbeff, cello.
Program Notes
Sonder is a composition whose musical strands are woven among lines of poetry. The poem was in turn inspired by a quilt, a quilt that stands against racism and reminds us that we are all one people.
When Marea Ensemble paired me with poet Kristen Nelson to create a new piece for this concert, I was thrilled to be working with a living poet whose generosity and collaborative spirit were instantly palpable. We collaborated on our vision before any lines were written. Kristen and I knew from the outset that we wanted a statement against violence, but one which reaffirmed our humanity. A statement at once particular to our personal hopes while hopefully resonating decades in the future.
Kristen found inspiration in Helen Murrell’s quilt “We Are All Warmed by the Same Sun” (2012). Her quilt reflects on the history of the inhumane Tuskegee Syphilis Study. From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service enrolled six-hundred Black men (nearly two-thirds of whom were afflicted with syphilis) in a study designed to record the natural course of the disease when left untreated, leading many to suffer disease complications, permanent brain damage, and death.
In response, Murrell’s quilt emphasizes our shared humanity. The title references the civil rights activist and theologian, William Stuart Nelson’s assertion, “Mankind is supported by one universe—the same earth feeds us, the same sun warms us, and the same stars shine upon us all.”
Notes by Chris Pratorius Gómez, with text from the Smithsonian Website