year of composition: 2006
playing time: 13'

These two pieces are settings of Inuit folksongs in English translation. They were originally published in the Journal of American Folklore at the end of the 19th century by the German anthropologist Franz Boas, who spent the summer of 1883 living amongst the Inuit population of Baffi n Island. The text for Summer Song is an excerpt of an incomplete text, while the text for Utitiaq‘s Song is presented in its entirety. The Utitiaq text is based on the story of an Inuit man who became stranded on an ice fl oe while sealing, and found himself adrift in the ocean for a week.