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Solo Voice
LGBTQ+ Music

Preserves (2022)

from Still Running
for tenor (or baritone) and piano

Text: Matthew Stepanic (b. 1990)
Duration: 4 minutes
Difficulty: Medium

Commissioned by Tim Carter with financial support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and dedicated to the memory of 49 queer lives lost in the massacre at Pulse Nightclub (12 June 2016). First performed in Victoria, BC by Tim Carter and Kimberley-Ann Bartczak in March 2022.

Still Running is a queer song cycle commissioned by Tim Carter for his final recital as part of graduate studies at the University of Victoria. The text for this cycle was written by Edmonton poet Matthew Stepanic, with whom I previously collaborated on my baritone song cycle he opens, and the poetry spans a wide range of queer themes, issues and emotions. Preserves is the penultimate song which opens on a quiet evening date, but becomes increasingly excited as the two begin to indulge. The music is woven with a wistful, repeating motif, eventually becoming unravelled and wild in the middle section—then ultimately sated and content.

The video below was produced by Tim Carter in 2022 with support from Pacific Opera Victoria as part of their Music Alive program.

Full Text

We’re on your front porch in the shadow
of an elm tree. It’s the longest day.
We’re waiting for the sun to secede to the moon.
You’ve filled the table with every Mason jar from your pantry,
unsealed them & uncorked every wine bottle too. We gorge
on marinated olives, wrap each one in a slice of prosciutto.
The Italian Centre was having a closing sale. We empty
Saskatoon berry jam, peach compote, apple rum jelly—
smother cardamom shortbread until our teeth ache with sweet.
I slug my rosé. You speak between crumbs: I can hear the moon rise.
I hear the dog’s paws as he scratches at the wooden deck in a dream;
the cats mewling from the upstairs window.
You pluck olives from a dish & await my response.
I’m chewing elk jerky; the light shifts:
I can taste it.

© Matthew Stepanic, 2021. Used with permission.