The Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale is returning to the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts for a concert of new works, which will include the world premiere of “Genesis” by composer Bob Cohen. The show will feature a performance of Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” with lyrics written by the acclaimed out poet Richard Blanco.
Blanco was born to Cuban-exile parents in Madrid before his family settled in Miami soon after he was born. Blanco went on to become a successful engineer but left that career on hold to accept a position at Central Connecticut State University as a professor of creative writing.
He then traveled extensively through Spain, Italy, France, Guatemala, Brazil, Cuba and New England before eventually moving to Washington, D.C., where he taught at Georgetown and American universities. President Barack Obama selected Blanco in 2012 to serve as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history; he joined the ranks of such luminary poets as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou and made history himself as the first immigrant, first Latino, first openly gay person and youngest person to be a U.S. inaugural poet.
Since the inauguration, Blanco has been in high demand as a speaker and writer, and has received honorary doctorates from Macalester College, Colby College and the University of Rhode Island. His 2014 memoir, “The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood,” detailed his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his artistic and sexual identities.
Blanco’s career was already notable before he was chosen to be the inaugural poet, but he said that honor brought him a level of success and attention that most accolades can’t match.
“It’s been incredible,” he said about the impact of his inaugural-poet title. “The inauguration is one of the most important moments for people in poetry on a scale with nothing else. You win a Pulitzer Prize and pretty much the world goes on. Of course there are your peers and literary people and whatnot. This just really interfaces poetry with the people in an amazing way and I welcome that because that has been my personal philosophy about poetry. Like [Roque] Datlon said: ‘Poetry is like bread; it’s for everyone.’ So yeah, the inauguration has opened up doors with these wonderful projects. It’s been a wonderful thing not only personally but I’m also an ambassador for turning on people to poetry in general and the power of poetry to enrich our lives. This is one more example of how great that can be.”
Blanco added that being associated with the presidency hasn’t made him any more political in his writings than he already was.
“That is something that I battled with even before the inauguration, having grown up in Miami in the 1970s in the politically charged climate that was always around me,” he said. “My writing has never been overtly political in that sense. I’ve always felt a self-imposed pressure to be more overtly political but in the end I think the bravest political action is compassion, love and trying to build bridges of communication rather than building walls. That’s what I try to do with my poetry: to connect us throughout shared humanity.”
Blanco said shifting gears from poetry to writing lyrics for a choir was different for him, but he was up for the challenge to work with choir music director Jeff Smith.
“They just gave me a call,” Blanco said about how he ended up working with the Boys Choir. “It’s a very exciting project and I was very surprised and jumped right on it. They thought it was a good fit and I certainly did. It was a whole new learning experience for me but it was very interesting. I’m learning firsthand the difference between writing lyrics and writing a poem. One of the main things I just realized is that in poetry we have beats but we don’t have time like they do in music. So you can’t hold a note in poetry. But in the oral tradition of poetry, when you read a poem you add music to it with your voice. The voice is an instrument. It was an amazing learning experience working with the lyrics and timing things out. It was very great to see how the roots of poetry itself are so much about songs, which is where it comes from in the beginning.”
Blanco added that he immediately fell into a productive creative chemistry with Smith.
“There was a Rodgers and Hammerstein thing happening,” he said. “He would play little things out on the piano to see how they would sound or he would sing them out loud. So as we worked on the lyrics, we worked out what would sound good and bright.”
Blanco said that adapting his writing to music will probably have some influence on his poetry writing in the future.
“It’s been a great learning experience that I will take with me for my poetry on the written page. It was very hard work but it was a lot of fun having this whole world open up and looking at poetry as an ancient root song in the way they come together.”
Blanco might not be on hand for the choir’s concert in Philadelphia, but there are plans for him to accompany the choir when they visit his home country of Cuba for some performances later this year.
“I’m hoping to join them in Cuba in August,” he said. “That’s going to be magical as well. I’m just curious to see that cultural bridge and how the people of Cuba respond to that moment. I’ve been to Cuba many times so it’s not a great big surprise to me. Of course I would like to see my family. For the choir itself, to be able to share my heritage and birthright with them, I look forward to that.”
The Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale performs “Genesis” and “Gershwin’s Cuban Overture” 4 p.m. June 4 at Verizon Hall, 300 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 215-670-2300 or visit www.phillyboyschoir.org/VerizonHall.