Every third dawn (2024) with text by Savanna Wegman, commissioned by Martina Rosaria O’Connell for RIAM ChamberFest Dublin

(trio for soprano, flute & piano)

Every third dawn is a subtle contemporary climate-change re-telling of the Persephone myth. It draws on the creation of seasons through her survived altercation with Hades, denoting a shift in the world from eternal Spring to it only encompassing the world one third of every year. In parallel, it is now as if our world’s ‘Spring’ is being sacrificed by the climate crisis and ongoing inaction, or more often, inadequate action. We consume our planets precious finite resources as if they are lush pomegranate seeds, yet it is those same seeds that bound a Goddess of Spring and the world itself to a much darker existence.

~ Dedicated to Martina & Madeleine | ~6 minutes

*Commissioned by Martina Rosaria O’Connell for ChamberFest DUBLIN 2024 | RIAM.

Every third dawn received its world premiere performance by Martina Rosaria O’Connell, Sarah Van Den Heuvel-Mouchot and David Vesey at the Royal Irish Academy of Music’s 2024 ChamberFest DUBLIN, in the Whyte Recital Hall on the 01/05/2024.

It subsequently received its Australian premiere performance by Bridgette Kelsey, Jenna Choi and Jennifer Enchelmaier as part of Bridgette Kelsey’s Honours Year Recital, held in Conservatorium Theatre, Griffith University and Queensland Conservatorium of Music on the 11/11/2024.

PERFORMANCES TO DATE

SET TEXT: Every third dawn (2024) by Savanna Wegman

Tiered rivers pour from above
Deeper than this terra firma
Every shade is drunk of red
She and the velvet, burn

the promise of rain
And warm azure falling
Here, soft libations run
And from her pomegranate veins
Flows every third dawn

next sun, blessed
rushing wind, cradled
a swansong, opened
As Underworlds awaken

Her body fell
From the garden of Zenith
Deep to the end of her rivers, Nadir
Restless, beyond the breath
And the beginnings