Boing Boing pal Andrea James writes, "Interesting backstory. The original choral work "Sleep" was set to Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.' Then came the legal tussle. Eric Whitacre explains…"
After a LONG legal battle (many letters, many representatives), the
estate of Robert Frost and their publisher, Henry Holt Inc., sternly
and formally forbid me from using the poem for publication or
performance until the poem became public domain in 2038.I decided that I would ask my friend and brilliant poet Charles
Anthony Silvestri … to set new words to the music I had already
written.
"So," Andrea writes, "Silvestri created a poem with the exact cadence of the Frost work.
The result is this. I always love these kinds of crowdsourced art in response to these
kinds of creative disputes!"
