Letters to My Daughters

Details

Josh Halpern full profile / Cello & Piano / 2 musicians

Other players: Yannick Rafalimanana

Full program notes

Letters to My Daughters is not only my first commissioning project, it's a profoundly personal collaboration with my friend, Scott Ordway.

In classical music, we pour so much time, money, and effort into supporting new commissions only to hide them among more "palatable" pieces. It forces audiences to hear something new without context or even an invitation. Why not make the composer the centerpiece, as if we could open a hatch at the top of their head and allow their life experiences, inspirations, and musical influences to pour out and assemble themselves into a kind of musical self-portrait?

I first met with Scott to discuss this project in November 2024. Like so many, Scott was reckoning with the uncertainty of the world—in particular, how to discuss it with his two young daughters. Rather than a broad exhibition of Scott's life and influences, our collaboration began to take shape as a love letter, time capsule, and urgent appeal to decency for his girls.

He began by writing five real letters. These letters asked questions we're all asking these days: Can we experience wonder and optimism in the face of fear and uncertainty? How might we find courage in the face of failure, injustice, or threat of harm? How do we foster and preserve reservoirs of goodness and decency in ourselves and each other? How do we tell people that we love them?

This program comprises music written at times of profound sociopolitical uncertainty. Debussy's Cello Sonata, composed as the global social order was being redefined by World War I; Bernstein's Three Meditations from MASS, reflections on the faith we seek when our ancient rituals are unraveled by doubt, dissent, and disillusionment; three songs by Ilse Weber—a nurse and music teacher at Theresienstadt who died at Auschwitz—reimagined by my friend, the genius jazz pianist Henrique Eisenmann; and finally, a lament named for the Arabic word for a mother's grief over the loss of her child, composed for me by Bruce Adolphe.

We premiered this project in the summer of 2025. Now, as we prepare to transform it into a commercial recording, I'm thrilled that my close friend and favorite collaborator, the French pianist Yannick Rafalimanana, will join me for this performance and our upcoming studio album.

This project has yielded a stunning, devastating, and ultimately uplifting program about love and resilience. And by mining this contemporary moment through the lens of Scott's love for his daughters, we have created something intimate and universal.

— Josh Halpern