Works » By Title » P » Portrait Of A Friend (21:00 / 1986)

Portrait Of A Friend (Lucky) was composed as an audio portrait of a friend, William Burrows, in exchange for his creating her stationary logo.

The composer interviewed Bill once a week for six months, recording his “stream of consciousness” guiding him to speak about his feelings about his impending divorce which he kept trying to hide. His garden was being ruined by drought at that time and the composer used it as a metaphor.

The result of dialogue used in this work was a few of his thoughts painstakingly rearranged and edited. The composer then composed and added the music.

The word “fuck” spoken at the height of anger by Burrows was in the original version, but because of USA broadcast rules, it was edited out. The lyrics to the songs are by Grace Cavalieri. The original words edited by Ms Rudow are by Burrows. The tenor is Howard Carr.