composer’s note: When Melody Moore approached me about writing a song on the poetry of Clementine von Radics, I was incredibly excited to become acquainted with this thrilling young poet’s work. Her poetry has a shocking directness and super-dramatic, operatic intensity that instantly made me want to set it to music. Because I had worked with Melody in the past in an operatic context (I was the rehearsal pianist & vocal coach when she sang the title role of Tosca for Madison Opera) I knew she was more than capable of conjuring an intense fire in performance that was perfectly suited to this poetry. So I wrote “Advice To Those Like Me, With Hearts Like Kindling” to be an art song, but one that doubles as a dramatic scene, a deeply emotional outpouring that plunges into high drama rather than shying away from it.