Both commissioned by Little Chamber Music, Pankanea’s two “stages” make up a pair of requiems written on the death of her parents. “The Fifth Stage” was originally written in 2015 for soprano and instrumental ensemble, and a new arrangement for musica intima was premiered in 2024. “The First Stage” was written for musica intima in 2018. The titles refer to the stages of grief Pankanea experienced as she was writing - she wrote “The Fifth Stage” many years after her father’s death, while “The First Stage” was written very shortly after her mother passed away.

"The First Stage is a piece I wrote about the death of my mother.  The piece was written for the amazing ensemble musica intima, and commissioned by Little Chamber Music.  It received multiple live performances at the Mountainview Cemetery.

I was commissioned to write this piece two months after my mother died. A very fresh take on processing death… "(JP)

“The First Stage” is mostly textless, but much less linear. “Wonder” opens with a sung fragment: Pankanea describes the opening as “the riff that Indian women sing over and over to their babies to put them to sleep.” The marimba gives us a steady heartbeat, before moving into the second movement - an exploration of “Innocence” which opens with a quote from ‘Que sera, sera.’ Doris Day gives way to a cinematic fantasy of children playing, which winds down slowly, leading us into “Trauma”, a movement still based on the opening riff, but transforming it to a darker space. “Shock” opens with spoken word - recounting Joelysa’s conversation with her mother - before a brief Rumi text is set homophonically. Finally, “Release”, the only a cappella movement in both works, marries the father’s theme from “The Fifth Stage” with the riff present throughout “The First Stage” - releasing a series of emotions from both pieces into the world.

“The conversation came up a few months after my mum had passed. At that point, I basically didn’t even know my name. I was completely distraught, I thought “that’s insane” - and at some point I realized, “When do you get an opportunity to write something from such a place of raw sadness, loss?” And so I said yes and went into the writing of it, and it’s the first piece in twenty years of being a composer where I felt like I almost had no direction. I was flip-flopping through all the stages of grief...and trying to adjust to a life when I’d lost my last parent - and it was brutal. I think that at the time I was very worried that it was going to sound like a hot mess. Hearing it again after three and a half years is quite amazing, because something came out of that which is very much my mother.” (Joelysa Pankanea, on “The First Stage”)

For the companion piece, 'The Fifth Stage', see here.