Tonya Malinowski / News Editor

Love is the inexhaustible subject of poets, and collaboration can help those words come alive and transcend the page. 

Now CCSU is welcoming one of the area’s best Spanish language poets, Rafael Osés, along with vocal accompanist Sarah Hersh and CCSU music professor Thomas Schuttenhelm in a collaborative effort that will delve even further into the concept of love.

Sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, “Tres Canciónes Españolas” is an exploration of musical response to poetry. 

Schuttenhelm said the creative evolution for the performance originally came from Osés’ poem “Balada” (Ballad), which was written in response to the death of his girlfriend. 

After Hersh heard Osés perform the poem at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts faculty recital, where they are both instructors, she asked if she could commission a composer to create a musical response to the work.

She approached Schuttenhelm, who composed the musical and vocal response.

“After I completed this work I asked Rafael if he would be willing to write more poems to make a set of pieces that would go together,” Schuttenhelm said. “He provided two more poems: “La Cancion Felina” (Felina’s Song) and an untilted piece, which I called “La Mariposa” (The Butterfly), because it is a significant image in the poem.”

Schuttenhelm is employing many unique musical elements into the performance to portray anger and sorrow, and Hersh’s soprano vocalics will have a half-sung, half-spoken intonation to accentuate the most important words and poetic elements.

“What makes the performance of these three pieces truly unique, is Rafael will give a recitation of each poem before we play the song. Thus, the audience can hear the poem as it was intended to stand, and then hear the musical response to the poem,” Shuttenhelm said.

The performance will be held Monday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. in Founders Hall. It is free and open to the public.