Programme Note
About his
And Furthermore they Bite, Kapilow says, “I really wanted to write a piece to perform with [Saint-Saen’s
Carnival of the Animals] so that kids could see a live composer.” Kapilow decided to ask children what their favorite animal poems were. “Almost all of their favorite poems had children being eaten. We think of kids liking nice, happy animals, but what they really love is horror and violence.” This led him to set the text of a playful John Gardner poem that is a favorite of his own three children.