What We Need Is Here, Lisa Reagan’s forthcoming album from Stillpoint Records, is now set for release on Friday, October 20; the new date is a result of production delays experienced late in the summer. The postponement has given the composer/performer and former member of the Washington National Opera an opportunity to complete a video for “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” one of the album’s most noteworthy selections. It’s the second single from the album which offers ten classic poems by noted authors, including Yeats, Frost, Keats, Shakespeare, and William Wordsworth who wrote “..Cloud” almost 220 years ago. All are set to original music composed by Reagan who worked with Tony-award winning and Grammy-nominated producer/orchestrator Jamshied Sharifi on the album, her seventh. The album also features the Celtic magic of special guest Seamus Egan, founding member of Solas.
Dick Metcalf in Contemporary Fusion Reviews, wrote of What We Need Is Here recently, “I give this album a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, with an “EQ” (energy quotient) score of 4.99… it’s a “must have” for those who find peace and joy in the weave of poetry and music. “
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is one of Lisa’s favorite poems; she felt its inherent naturalness of language would work beautifully in a song. “I love daffodils, and the idea of them dancing in a field and bringing happiness and lightness to the heart is an appealing subject for me,” she notes. She and Sharifi agreed that the music and production should mirror the simple beauty of the poem. The poem/lyric includes the following:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze
One of the founders of English Romanticism, Wordsworth was also one of its most central figures and important intellects. Named England’s poet laureate in 1843, he said about his poetry that it is written in “the real language of men.”
Lisa Reagan Video – I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud
Earlier, she released an evocative video for Wendell Berry’s “The Wild Geese” that is the source of the album’s title.
And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here
Berry is one of America’s greatest living poets from whom she received special permission to set his poem to music, as was also the case for Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things.”
Lisa Reagan Video – The Wild Geese
Lisa describes What We Need Is Here as a “project of the heart.” She recalls, “I started with how a poem made me feel. It was like creating a painting that ‘looked’ how the poem felt. I wanted to set a mood, creating a tonal palette for the words. I was so fortunate to be able to hand my songs to Jamshied for the orchestral arrangements and production. He is not only a brilliant musician, but he also felt the same obligation that I did to honor the poets and their muses.”
Accompanied by a 14-piece ensemble under the direction of Jamshied Sharifi, Lisa previewed the album live in concert in her hometown on Thursday, July 20th. The performance took place at the newly restored and refurbished Little Theatre, a part of the Oklahoma City Civic Center.
Beyond the digital realm, the album will be available as a CD and vinyl LP. The cover art was created by celebrated portrait artist Paul Wyse, whose work is part of both the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian and the Canadian House of Commons collections. His subjects have ranged from Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, Billy Joel and Harry Connick Jr. to author Toni Morrison. It’s worth noting that Wyse is also a musician who, as a classical pianist, has appeared with such greats as Michael Tilson-Thomas, Vladimir Feltsman and Gloria Estefan.
A native of Oklahoma City, Lisa Reagan has been recording and performing from an early age. She earned a master’s degree in Opera and Vocal Performance from the University of Maryland and joined the Washington National Opera thereafter. She has shared stages with some of the greatest voices of our time, including Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming. She has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Salzburg Music Festival, and the White House, among hundreds of other venues around the globe. Although Lisa had been recording since she was 16, the untimely passing of her sister triggered feelings that led to a creative outpouring, resulting in her first album of original songs. After spending two decades with the Washington National Opera, she has focused on her own music. Last spring, Lisa taught master classes for opera singers at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy and will be doing so again this year. Her original composition “A l’infini” from her album, Arcana, was heard on Bravo’s reality series Project Runway.
Explore the World of Lisa Reagan’s “What We Need is Here”
Lisa Reagan – What We Need Is Here track listing
The Owl – Arianrhod Bel-Moore
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud – William Wordsworth
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day – William Shakespeare
The Peace of Wild Things – Wendell Berry
Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
The Two Trees – William Butler Yeats
Bright Star – John Keats
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven – William Butler Yeats
The Wild Geese – Wendell Berry
