NEW OAK: Research and Development in Berlin

NEW OAK is an original song cycle for voice and piano and chamber orchestra by composer Matthew Ricketts, with text by poet Dante Micheaux, performed by baritone Wayne Arthur. The work is inspired by Walt Whitman’s unpublished 1859 poem sequence Live Oak, With Moss, an intimate meditation on male love and desire that Whitman ultimately removed from Leaves of Grass and kept private during his lifetime.

Often described as a lost cornerstone of queer American literary history, Live Oak, With Moss has since been recognized as a watershed work of homosexual self-expression. Rather than setting Whitman’s text directly, NEW OAK engages Whitman’s emotional intensity and thematic concerns through Micheaux’s original poetry, reimagined through a contemporary queer lens.

Micheaux’s texts extend Whitman’s aesthetic of longing and vulnerability while also interrogating its limits, particularly Whitman’s masculinist framing of male desire. The result is a modern queer response that resonates with Whitman’s ideals of expansive love while revealing tensions between historical and present-day understandings of queer identity.

Whitman’s poetry has inspired generations of composers, from Vaughan Williams and Hindemith to John Adams and Oliver Knussen, as well as contemporary adaptations such as John Zorn’s On Leaves of Grass and Matthew Aucoin’s opera Crossing. NEW OAK situates itself within this lineage, extending Whitman’s yearning and pensive song into the present.

An early preview of NEW OAK, featuring the first three of twelve planned songs, was presented at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. That presentation combined song, poetry reading, and artist discussion. This collaborative exchange between composer, poet, and performer continues to shape the work’s development.

The next phase of the project will focus on research and development in Berlin, a city internationally recognized for its experimental music scene and rich queer artistic community. Berlin’s history of queer cultural production and interdisciplinary collaboration offers a fertile environment for deepening the project’s musical language, cultural dialogue, and professional artistic connections.

Funds raised through Millay Arts fiscal sponsorship will support this research period. The $3,000 fundraising goal will help cover travel, housing, coaching, rehearsal time, and development materials. This support enables the continued creation of new vocal repertoire that centers queer voices within classical and contemporary music traditions.

Your contribution may qualify for Federal Tax exemption: Millay Arts is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, incorporated in the State of New York, EIN 14-1556850.

NEW OAK: A MUSICAL COLLABORATION