The Musicians:Vocals: Anne HillsThe Quartet: (All except 3,7)Violins: Lawrence Major & Jen BolcarViola: Geoffrey BakerCello: Sachino TsinadzeHarp: Alison Simpson (6, 10)Flute: Susan Winsberg (1, 2, 6, 7), Roberta Goren (9, 13)Oboe, English horn: Janet Easlee (1, 2, 6, 9, 13)Clarinet: Brian Adamczyk (1, 2, 6), Nathan Snyder (13)Bassoon: Eric Wilson (2, 13)French horn: Kim Newell (1, 2, 6, 9, 13)Trumpet, Piccolo Trumpet, Flugelhorn: Bob Wagner (1, 3, 6)Trombone: T.J. Harris (1, 6), Gail Wagner (3)Tuba: Stephen Rhindress (1, 3, 6)Additional Violins: Myanna Harvey (1, 6), Nancy Brown (1, 6), Scott Hensil (9), Jessica Tosti (9)Additional Viola: Nancy Brown (1,6)Contrabass: Andrew Nelson (1, 6, 9), Jordi Gaspar (9)Celtic harp: Jay Ansill (3, 7)Produced by Jay Ansill and Anne Hills • All Arrangements by Jay AnsillRobert Graves poetry is ©The Trustees of the Robert Graves Copyright TrustRecorded at Cheesy Road Studios by Jay Ansill (Anne’s vocals at Artfarm Recording by Sean Boyd)Mixed at Artfarm Recording by Sean Boyd • Mastered by Charlie Pilzer at Airshow Takoma ParkCover painting “Matinada a Deià” by Claudia Balant • CD Design by Mark D. MossAnne would like to thank Mark & Tamlyn Moss for their love and support; David Deutsch and Mary Williams Droulliard for their encouragement; The Southwest Michigan Symphony for setting my music on this path ... and to my late parents who inspired my love of the arts and believed in me from the moment I began to sing.Jay would like to extend his thanks to all of the Graves family: William, Lucia, Tomás and to the memory of Juan; and very special thanks to Natalia Farrán ... to Larry Cohen for hours of invaluable help with the music ... as always, to Claudia for love and support and inspiration, and her beautiful painting. And, Anne and Jay both want to thank Sean, Charlie, and all the brilliant musicians who lent their talents to this project.The Songs01 Follow That Roadw&m by Anne Hills, ©1994 Raven Heart Music / ASCAPJay’s pastoral arrangement compliments the rhythm of the passing seasons that I tried to capture in the song that has become my signature piece. It was arranged in 2009 for the Southwest Michigan Symphony. -- A02 Rowanm: Jay Ansill, w: Anne Hills, ©2016 El Chiflado Music/Raven Heart Music / ASCAPThis began as a simple little waltz that I wrote for dear friends on the day their child was born. I sent it to Anne, who wrote the lyrics to it. Then we both completely forgot about it until five years later, when something reminded one of us about it I expanded it from a woodwind quintet to a nine piece ensemble with a string quartet and added the instrumental section in the middle. -- J03 Alliew: Robert Graves, m: Jay Ansill, ©2000 El Chiflado Music / ASCAPThis one is a musical setting for the first Robert Graves poem that I read. In his memoir of World War I, Goodbye To All That, Graves mentions that he (as well as his friend Siegfried Sassoon)"defined the war in our poems by making contrasted definitions of peace." This contrast usually had to do with children. The poem has an innocence about it that always struck me as heartbreaking. -- J04 Epitalami (Wedding Prayer)w: Mosèn Antoni Maria Alcover (adapt. by Anne Hills), m: Joan Bibiloni, ©Joan BibiloniIs a translation of a Catalan poem by Antoni Maria Alcover (1862-1932) with music by the contemporary Mallorcan guitarist and singer songwriter Joan Bibiloni. I was able to get a translation of the poem, but it was just a literal translation of the words. Anne did an amazing job of rewriting it so that it fit the music. I like to say that this is a rare example of translating lyrics from English to English. -- J05 The Scarecroww&m by Lal and Mike Waterson, ©1972 Leading NoteA song by Mike and Lal Waterson of the British folk group The Watersons. Beside the haunting and disturbing imagery in the song, it struck me as good fit here among the Robert Graves poems as it hints at the main themes of Graves’ masterwork about the mythological roots of poetry, White Goddess; taking us through the cycle of the year and our human connection to the land. -- J 06 Lover’s Knotw: Anne Hills, m: Jay Ansill, ©1995 Debussy Fields Music/Raven Heart Music / ASCAPThis song came from working as one of the actors in, as well as singing and writing lyrics to Jay’s melodies for, the Arden Theatre’s production of Brian Friel’s play Lovers (1st Act). In the program, our director Aaron Posner referenced Breughel’s Painting of “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” as similar in its contrast of that solitary tragedy against the abundant thrum of everyday life. After the play, I adapted the song to work as a stand-alone song. -- A07 Counting the Beatsw: Robert Graves, m: Jay Ansill, ©1996 Debussy Fields Music / ASCAPThis is the first Robert Graves poem I set to music. To me, it has always been a song to my wife Claudia. -- J08 Sonnet: Fragile Giftw: Anne Hills, m: Jay Ansill, ©2016 Raven Heart Music/El Chiflado Music / ASCAPWhen a dear friend suffered the loss of his mother I found myself wanting to write a more formal condolence and have always loved the sonnet form. I was glad when Jay chose to write a melody and setting, it gave me a chance to refine the words. -- A09 Winter Rosesw: Anne Hills, m: Jay Ansill, ©2009 Raven Heart Music/El Chiflado Music / ASCAPThis song was written specifically for the Southwest Michigan Symphony’s 2009 Valentine’s Day concert. My mother was legally blind by then and my father was beginning to decline. When Jay gave me this melody I decided to focus on their relationship, which began after my mother had lost her brother in WWII and before she became an avid gardener with close to fifty rose bushes in our backyard. -- A10 Some Boatsw&m: Anne Hills, ©1998 Raven Heart Music / ASCAPWords and melodies often come like manna from heaven, revealing deeper meanings once in the world and open to other’s experiences. It wasn’t until I sang this in front of an audience that I truly understood its origins. I had been reading my grandfather’s diary, poems and sermons regarding my grandparents’ loss of their only son and imagining my mother, at 17, longing to see her brother again (lost at sea in WWII). What was it like to be the soloist with her high school choir on Detroit radio, singing “God Bless Our Boys” with her brother MIA? -- A11 One Hard Lookw: Robert Graves, m: Jay Ansill, ©1996 Debussy Fields Music / ASCAPI love the brevity and clarity in this description of romantic communication by Robert Graves. -- A12 When You Are Old w: by W.B. Yeats, m: by Jay Ansill, ©1994 Debussy Fields Music / ASCAPThis was one of the first of Jay’s settings of poetry (William Butler Yeats) that I heard and found exceptionally moving. I thought it fit this project perfectly. -- A13 Suite: Capvespre a Deiàm: Jay Ansill, ©2016 El Chiflado Music / ASCAPIn 2004, I was awarded a grant from the Independence Foundation to travel to Mallorca for a few months and learn about the traditional music of the island. I stayed in a little casita like a gingerbread house with no electricity on the mountainside beneath the village of Deià with a view past the olive groves to the Mediterranean. The village is surrounded by a semicircular mountain called the Teix. Graves used to say that, if you stayed long enough, the iron content in the mountains made you either mad or a poet. But when the sun began to set, the mountainside turned from silver grey to a vivid crimson, and the moon, which figures so prominently in Graves' poetry, made her presence known as if the village was her home.This piece combines three traditional melodies. The first is"Ses Vermadores," which is a song for the grape harvesting. Next is the"Parado de Selva," which describes the exciting women of the village of Selva. The song also has references to fruits; cherries, apples and apricots. The third is a ballad that I learned about from Tomás Graves called"Ciutat de Napols." The song is about a hangman's daughter who falls in love with a condemned prisoner. When the father refuses to let the prisoner go, the daughter asks to be hanged along with him. -- J14 Under the Olivesw: Robert Graves, m: Jay Ansill, ©2010 Debussy Fields Music / ASCAPThere's a BBC documentary about Graves that was made in the '90s which includes some footage from a poetry reading at the amphitheater on Graves' property in Deià. The poet's daughter Lucia gives a moving reading of this poem. Her voice lent such a depth to the poem, that it occurred to me that this was how it should sound if I were to set it to music. -- J