Lisa Reagan, former member of the Washington National Opera, has made another unexpected career turn with What We Need Is Here, to be released on August 25th, 2023 by Stillpoint Records.

The new album, which offers ten classic poems by noted authors, including Yeats, Frost, Keats, Wordsworth, and Shakespeare, is set to original music she composed for the project.

Lisa worked with Tony-award winning and Grammy-nominated producer/orchestrator Jamshied Sharifi, who had similar involvement in her previous release Shunia, a collaboration with fellow former National Opera alumna Suzanne Jackson.

Indeed, the song “Sa Re Sa Sa” from that album was the Silver Winner in the World Fusion Music category at the 2021 COVR Visionary Awards. To date, Lisa has recorded seven albums.

Furthermore, she titled the new album after a line from “The Wild Geese” by Wendell Berry, for which she received special permission directly from the poet:

“And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.”

1. The Owl
2. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
3. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day
4. The Peace of Wild Things
5. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
6. The Road Not Taken
7. The Two Trees
8. Bright Star
9. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
10. The Wild Geese

The album opens on a flourishing The Owl and the stirring earnestness within I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, and those are followed by the veritably ethereal Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day, the heartfelt majesties of The Peace of Wild Things and then comes the precociously playful Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Along next is the aching yearn found within The Road Not Taken and the Celtic-hued The Two Trees, and they are in turn seamlessly backed by the Eastern-imbibed Bright Star, the recording rounding out on the luxuriant He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, closing on the effortlessly impassioned The Wild Geese.

Lisa describes What We Need Is Here as a “project of the heart,” recalling, “I started with how the poem made me feel. It was like creating a painting that ‘looked’ how the poem felt. I wanted to set a mood, creating a tonal palette for the words. I was so fortunate to be able to hand my songs to Jamshied for the orchestral arrangements and production. He is not only a brilliant musician, but he also felt the same obligation that I did to honor the poets and their muses.”

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