Charles Calomiris: Songs from the Lost & Found

Songs from the Lost & Found
There are many Pano Horas (“Upper Villages”). One, on the island of Syros, is the birthplace of the rebetiko composer, Markos Vamvakaris. Another lies in the foothills of Mount Taygetos, part of an area called Vordonia, of bygone medieval grandeur, where today one encounters little but the pungent aroma of oregano, the sound of crickets, and the distant spectacle of cypress trees projecting up from an open plain. Still another lies in a canyon in the Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, where red rock, sage, and pumas abound. The keeper of a Lost & Found located in some Pano Hora, location unknown, left the following message, together with the contents of the Lost & Found he tended: “People come to Pano Hora and then disappear, but sometimes leave behind songs, which is why we need a Lost & Found. We never know how songs become lost. They are now yours to keep or lose.”
We know little about the identities of the people referenced in the lost songs. Guillermina Supervía fled the Franco dictatorship with her husband, Rafael, a prominent Republican. They eventually found themselves in Washington, D.C., where they both taught Spanish literature and language. We believe the author of these two Spanish songs may have been one of Guillermina’s students. Emily Dickinson is one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century, whose stature was appreciated only after her death. She lived a private life and her poems were often included in letters to friends. Allison’s three dreams form part of an operatic score that was never completed, in which Allison apparently plays the part of a violin prodigy who lived in New York City but dreamed of a life in the American West. The two Baroque humor pieces are from that same work. Fanis Tsoulouhas is a Greek poet who moved to the United States to pursue a career in economics. These three poems were included in his 2011 book of poems, Sarcophagus. The two Peloponnesian dances are traditional folk dances – the Kalamatiano and Tsamiko, respectively. What Will I Say? pays homage to the victims of the February 2015 beheading of twenty-one Coptic Christians.