I was onstage at the Thoreau School in Concord, MA, warming up my harp for a show when a young woman entered the empty auditorium and walked up to the stage. “Odds, my name is Jazimina MacNeil,” she said. “I’m a singer, and I have a proposition for you.”

Never having met her, I kept on playing. “Do tell,” I replied, intrigued. “What’s your name again?”

“Jazimina. I’m a mezzo-soprano.”

Interesting name, I thought. “Classical music?”

“Yes.” She and a colleague, a soprano, Sarah Shafer, Jazimina explained, specialize in singing Antonin Dvorak’s Moravian Duets, a little-known set of songs with lyrics in Czech, the preponderance of them for two women’s voices.

I’ve loved Dvorak’s music all my life, especially his New World Symphony. “So why are we talking?” I asked.

“I want you to write a fairy tale based on the duets,” she said. “One that you can tell, while Sarah and I sing the songs in between.”

I immediately thought of Serge Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a favorite of mine as a child. A combination of storytelling and classical music. This project could be similar, but new.

“Not many people know about these duets, but with a story,” she added, “they might love them as much as we do.”

Long story short, two years later we’re preparing summer rehearsals with pianist Emely Phelps for the premiere of Danika the Rose in October. It will take place in Peterborough, New Hampshire at Bass Hall, with the help of The Harris Center and Electric Earth Concerts.

 

Tickets are on sale.