“I’m Nobody! Who are You?,” a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem, was composed in 2019 for voice, piano, and viola, and it was first performed in 2020 by soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee with pianist Jeremy VanSlyke and violist Carrie VanSlyke in a remote recording session made during the pandemic for broadcast on MTT25: An American Icon, a television special celebrating his 25 years at the San Francisco Symphony.
Measha Brueggergosman-Lee and violist Carry VanSlyke
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! They’d advertise—you know!
How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!
Text by Emily Dickinson
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?” – Emily Dickinson (1861)