Impressions: settings of poetry by Alice Ruth Moore (also known as Alice Dunbar-Nelson)

You can find the music here (transposed higher here) and on this page of the IMSLP. You can listen to a computer-generated recording here.

Alice Ruth Moore (1875-1935), the daughter of a once-enslaved mother, was born in New Orleans. She graduated from Straight University, and worked in New Orleans as an elementary school teacher. During the 1920s and 1930s Moore, who then went by the name Alice Dunbar-Nelson, was an activist for African American rights and women’s rights, appearing often as a speaker, and writing essays, reviews, and articles in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals.

The cover art is by my mother, June Fine. I think that my mother would have liked the 20-year-old Moore's poetry (and her other writing) very much. The mood of the poetry, and consequently the music, is rather somber, but we are living in somber times.