One proud mother, I went to New York City for the premiere of my late daughter Laura Morefield’s “The Work at Hand,” a chamber work written by acclaimed American composer Jake Heggie (“Dead Man Walking,” “Moby-Dick”) for mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, whose collaborators were cellist Anne Martindale Williams and pianist Bradley Moore. The premiere took place at Tuesday, Feb. 17 at Carnegie Hall’s 599-seat Zankel Hall. The fully orchestrated version will be premiered by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra May 15 and 17, conducted by Michael Francis. Also attending the Zankel Hall premiere were Dan Morefield, Laura’s husband of 30 years, and his mother, Dotty Morefield. Jake wrote a gorgeous program note about Laura. I was beside myself with joy over the quality of the performance and the brilliance of the writing, in which Jake somehow captured the incredulous, angry and turbulent feelings experienced by Laura upon receiving such a shocking diagnosis at age 48. Born Laura Jeanne Costales, Laura Morefield (1960-2011) was a 1978 graduate of San Diego’s Madison High School. Following a dynamic career with First interstate Bank, she graduated Pepperdine University summa cum laude with a degree in communications. She headed the Santa Clarita Food Pantry, coordinating fundraising and grant-writing efforts. Laura was a poet, fiction writer and political columnist. In November of 2008, she was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. She far outlived her prognosis, and before she died in July of 2011, she asked me to collect and edit her post-diagnosis poems, titled “The Warrior’s Stance” (thewarriorsstance.com). Sales benefit Laura’s favorite online support organization, the Colon Cancer Alliance, of Washington, D.C. Laura and I became friends with Jake after he set my poem “Winter Roses” in 2004. Laura trusted Jake, and after attending the premiere of his opera “Moby-Dick” in 2010, Laura, a private poet, sent him, at his request, her “10 top favorite poems.” From Jake’s Carnegie Hall program note: “[It was] a packet of shatteringly beautiful poems that arrived with ‘The Work At Hand’ on top. I was completely overwhelmed and asked if I could set this poem one day. She was delighted. Not long after that – but after an extraordinarily brave fight – Laura passed away. None of us could believe it. She was 50 years old. “I’m deeply grateful to Laura’s amazing husband Dan Morefield for his generosity in granting me permission to set ‘The Work At Hand’; to Charlene for her passion, friendship and guidance; and to Jamie and Anne for saying yes to the journey.” Laura, it doesn’t get much better than this. But there is an orchestra in your future.
