From the recording Voice and Piano

Mad Girl Love Songs (2016)
Composer: Bosba (b.1997)
Perforemers: Oznur Tuluoglu, Lewis Warren

Tuesday Night New Music, January 2016
New England Conservatory of Music
Boston, MA

Program Notes:



Based on Sylvia Plath's poem " Mad Girl's Love Song", " I shut my eyes" is inspired by Amy Beach's masterfully crafted art songs. The piece starts in a calm manner before becoming more animated as our subject fantasizes about getting kissed and "bewitched" into bed. Right after the climax of the song, she reflects on her unrequited love, singing " I should have loved a thunderbird instead, at least when spring comes they roar back again".

"Seaside" is inspired by Ogen Nash's " Pretty Halcyon Days" and offers development in our protagonist's love life. She is much more stable and less " mad" about her lover. She can " lie on the beach ... with nothing at all to be done". Unlike in " I shut my eyes", our mad girl lavishes in the serenity of her love story.

I discovered Kevin Prufer's poem " In a Beautiful Country" in my last semester of english class in high school. I found the poem delectably depressing so I naturally decided to put it to music. The repetitive motif in the piano reflect the emptiness of driving alone in open roads and the rumbling of hopeless emotions inside our broken singer as she contemplates suicide. The double meaning of " falling in love" reveals our mad girl's struggle to move on.However, in " Tomorrow", our mad girl has moved on and looks back to her past love with much tenderness and wisdom.


I wrote the first two songs for a friend who had a crush on a pianist. Her name meant " ruler" and his name meant " universe", so this set of songs was originally named " Songs for the Rulers of the Universe". Both of them are no longer my friends and I never got to have the third piece performed by them, having finally finished writing it earlier this january, nearly a year after my relationship with them ceased. Our friendship was fun while it lasted and I am grateful that they were once a part of my life.