Choir Fam Podcast
Choir Fam Podcast
Ep. 162 - Poetic Lyricism in Choral Music - Charles Anthony Silvestri
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“I tell composers to collaborate with a poet who takes their craft as seriously as they take their craft. It’s a very rare creative who can do both well. What most often happens is a really good composer isn’t a very good poet, or a very good poet is a mediocre composer. One side of that creative process will lose. That’s why I love to collaborate, because you bring in a separate creative mind who has different standards and who takes their craft just as seriously. It keeps both sides intellectually honest, able to not lose objectivity.”
Acclaimed as "the preeminent choral lyricist of our time," poet, author, composer, and clinician Charles Anthony Silvestri specializes in providing bespoke poetry for choral composers, especially texts in Latin, both sacred and secular.
He is the author of more than seventy published works in collaboration with over a hundred composers worldwide, including celebrated composers such as Eric Whitacre, Dan Forrest, Ola Gjeilo, Christopher Tin, and Kim Andre Arnesen; and for groups such as the King's Singers, VOCES8, San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, and the Tallis Scholars.
As a clinician, Silvestri speaks to choirs about his works, the creative process, and about his collaborative relationships with composers. He has given live and webcast presentations at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Disney Hall, and at universities and schools around the country. His poems for Eric Whitacre's Sleep and Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine have also been published as children's books. He is also the author of A Silver Thread (GIA 2019), a retrospective of almost 20 years of his lyric poetry; and his essays have been published by Business Insider and The Huffington Post. Silvestri's words have been sung by thousands of choirs around the world, and have been heard on television, radio, and Grammy-winning recordings.
In addition to writing choral lyrics, Silvestri is also an accomplished artist/painter. He is an aficionado of Irish traditional music and plays concertina in a trad band and at pub sessions around the world. Retired from the classroom in 2025, he is a veteran teacher with almost four decades of experience teaching kindergarten through college. He currently lives, writes, and makes music in Lawrence, Kansas.
To get in touch with Tony, you can find him on Facebook (@CharlesAnthonySilvestri) or Instagram (@tony_silvestri) or visit his website, charlesanthonysilvestri.com/
Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.
Podcast music from Podcast.co
Photo in episode artwork by Trace Hudson
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