Robert Frost’s evocative and gentle poems provide the perfect sensibility for musical setting. The selection of poems for In the clearing are, on one level, about nature and a walk through the seasons, fall to spring. On another level, they are about the impermanence of the world arounda us and, perhaps, the uncertainty we often feel in our relationships to other people and the things we cherish. In the clearing was premiered by Coro Allegro of Boston in May 1995.

—Kenneth Fuchs