Cameos (Bold Beauty)

Singer Molly Fillmore commissioned Hall to compose songs based on six of her own poems, each poem being a poetic illumination of a lesser-known woman visual artist. Their names are also the song titles: Sarah Albritton, Kay WalkingStick, Nellie Mae Rowe, Alice Dalton Brown, Agnes Pelton, and Corita Kent. Compelled by their art to be bold, each of these women challenged prescribed roles and expectations. The musical settings are inspired both by the poetry itself and by the art that each artist created. The versions for soprano and mezzo-soprano are largely the same; however, there are enough rewritten passages for the mezzo-soprano to account for range changes and adjustments that it should truly be considered a separate work for mezzo-soprano in its own right.