Welcome to the Broken Hearts Club
Jessica Meyer

Composer Jessica Meyer was struck by the “intense and visceral” poetry Cleveland-born King Weatherspoon wrote at age 17, verses that resonated with Meyer’s memory of her own creative process as a teen writing music. The vulnerability and insight in Weatherspoon’s poetry about love inspired Meyer to craft this narrative work exploring different aspects of relationships and belonging.

A violist who performs in a wide range of classical and popular styles, Meyers intentionally references and combines varied genres in her compositions. Within an art song framework, she plays with a lighthearted, almost pop rhythm at times during the first movement, referencing the pop technique of giving serious subjects lighthearted musical treatment. The second movement is a love ballad with Broadway overtones, glorying in sumptuous high notes. The third movement begins with playful skittering lines in the upper strings depicting the line “love is a damp corner of the room/ where the bugs come in,” and moves into a dramatic operatic aria.

Rather than tackling the concepts of justice, equality, or freedom directly, this work is a celebration of universality — of how the human experience of love described by a young Black person from East Cleveland can resonate with a composer of vastly different age and background.