Call and Response Across Time / The Art of Verse and Sound: Debussy’s Preludes, Book II
October 12, 2026 - Gabrielle Yeary
On their own, music and poetry have the power to move an audience. Together, they create a conversation between sound and language. That conversation came to life on September 30, 2026 in the Cook Recital Hall of the MSU College of Music, at the RCAH Center for Poetry’s first collaborative event of the semester, The Art of Verse and Sound: Debussy’s Preludes, Book II.
The event expanded on last year’s collaboration with the College of Music, The Art of Verse and Sound: Debussy’s Preludes, Book I. Like the first event, Book II brought musicians and poets together, this time focusing on the 12 preludes that make up the second book of Debussy’s collection. Published in 1913, the book reflects Europe’s changing artistic landscape during a pre-WWI era. The second book takes a far more experimental approach than that of his first book, a development that was seen within the poets’ performances. Due to the striking harmonic elements, the book experienced a lot of initial criticism prior to its general acceptance among the classical community.
The experimental nature of Debussy’s work left room for the poets to interpret the music in different ways. While the audience heard the same composer throughout the evening, each poet brought their own experiences and perspective to the piece they were paired with. The result was a program where the music could mean something different depending on what came after it.
Proposed by Assistant Professor of Piano in MSU’s College of Music, Stanislav Khristenko, the event aimed to explore the connection between Debussy’s music and poetry. Khristenko, alongside Center for Poetry Director Toby Altman, alternated the event between solo piano performances and poetry readings. As one prelude ended, a poet took the stage, offering their own interpretation of what they had just heard. The audience was able to hear Debussy’s music and then immediately experience how someone else had translated that music into words.
“It’s been a brilliant collaboration, in part because our arts are so different; we’re able to supplement each other’s expertise. And the different performance cultures in poetry and classical music complement each other,” Altman explained.
The format also brought together two groups that do not always share the same stage. Poets, musicians, students, and faculty gathered for an evening that allowed each art form to stand on its own while still influencing the other. Rather than separating the concert and poetry readings into two distinct portions, the program allowed the audience to move between them throughout the night. As Altman explains, poetry’s history as an art form is rich with collaboration. In that sense, poetry is being brought back to its origins.
“Music and poetry spring from the same place in one’s soul and share the objective of expressing emotion,” said Danita Brandt, an associate professor at Michigan State. “They are two sides of a Mobius strip which, when you trace it around and around, has only one side. If music and poetry were human they’d be twins joined at the hip.”
Brandt was one of the twelve poets who performed throughout the night. Each poet was paired with one of Debussy’s 12 preludes, giving them the freedom to respond to the music in their own way. The poems did not have to follow a specific style or approach, which allowed each poet to find their own connection to the music.
As the closing poet, Brandt performed a final haiku inspired by Debussy’s final prelude, “Feux d’artifice.” Before the event, she had already been working on a haiku about fire for a poetry group she participates in. Listening to Debussy’s final prelude gave her a reason to return to it.
“I went back to my haiku notebook and found the words that the music evoked: the back-and-forth swash and backwash of waves alternating with explosions. The explosions would be volcanic eruptions; the sand would be the black sand derived from the weathering of the basaltic lava. The black sand holds the island’s memory of those long-ago eruptions. This felt right.”
Brandt’s experience was one example of how differently the poets responded to the same collection of music. A piece of music that might evoke one image for a listener could lead a poet somewhere completely different. Instead of trying to explain exactly what Debussy intended, the poets were able to take the pieces in their own directions, using them as inspiration for their own thoughts and experiences.
Rebecca Biber brought another perspective to the event. As both a piano teacher and a poet, she has a connection to both sides of the performance. Her poem focused on her complicated relationship with Debussy’s music. While she admires his work, she also struggled with his problematic beliefs and the history surrounding classical piano.
“My student and I shared the feeling that the beauty of his music is at odds with the ugliness of his attitudes,” Rebecca explained. “As I wrote the poem, I was thinking of the anti-Blackness problem of classical piano generally.”
For Rebecca, the poem became a way to address something that could not be addressed by the music alone. Debussy’s preludes can communicate emotion and create an atmosphere, but they cannot explain the complicated history behind the person who wrote them. Poetry gave Biber a way to put those thoughts into words.
That difference is part of what made the collaboration work. The music could create a feeling, while the poetry could respond to that feeling, question it or take it somewhere else. The relationship was not only about what poets could take from the musicians, either. Biber saw the event as an opportunity for both groups to learn from one another.
“Poets have much to learn from musicians on the art and etiquette of performing. Connecting with your audience, understanding your strengths as a performer, and learning to get your sounds off the page are all important skills,” Rebecca Biber explained. “In turn, musicians can learn from poets to revise and reinvent. We can change interpretations, change our phrasing.”
For the poets, performing their work alongside professional and student musicians also created a different kind of performance experience. A poem that exists primarily on the page takes on a new life when it is read aloud to an audience, much like a musical piece can change depending on the person performing it.
The same was true for the musicians. Rather than performing all 12 preludes as one continuous collection, the pianists had the opportunity to hear how the audience’s attention shifted between music and poetry. Each piece had its own space within the larger program.
“Professor Khristenko and the student pianists were the heart of the program, deservedly so. Their artistry was superb. Alternating piano pieces with poems allowed each art form to have some breathing room,” Rebecca said.
The alternating format kept the evening from becoming solely a concert or solely a poetry reading. Instead, each piece became part of a larger conversation. The audience could listen to a prelude, hear a poet’s response and then return to the music with that response in mind.
That exchange was possible because of the similarities between the two forms. Both music and poetry depend on rhythm, pacing and sound, even if they use those elements differently. For the poets, Debussy’s compositions provided another way to think about those familiar elements of language.
“Rhythm, beat, cadence, tempo, volume, phrasing…the two arts are very similar,” Rebecca’s brother, Gabriel Biber, said. “Song seems to shine in prolonging sound and finding meaning and mood in melody. Poetics can name in a way that maybe defies even music’s pervasive power.”
To view the livestream of The Art of Verse and Sound: Debussy’s Preludes Book II, click here.