The American composer Kevin Puts returns with a striking new album, Emily, No Prisoner Be, a bold and emotionally charged song cycle that sets the poetry of Emily Dickinson to music. Featuring the extraordinary mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato alongside the genre-defying string trio Time for Three, the album stands out as one of the most compelling contemporary classical releases of recent years.
The project began during DiDonato’s performances as Virginia Woolf in Puts’ opera The Hours, when the composer approached her with the idea of creating a new work together. At the same time, Puts had just completed Contact, his Grammy Award–winning collaboration with Time for Three. The convergence of these artists proved decisive. Puts immediately sensed a rare chemistry, envisioning a setting in which Dickinson’s visionary 19th-century poetry could be reimagined with raw immediacy and modern intensity.
Inspired by Time for Three’s unconventional instrumentation, two violins and double bass, and DiDonato’s dramatic and technical versatility, Puts composed a cycle that refuses categorisation. Emily – No Prisoner Be moves freely between contemporary classical music, opera, musical theatre, and even elements of rock, allowing Dickinson’s inner world to erupt with startling clarity. As DiDonato herself notes, it feels as though Dickinson’s words had been “waiting” for this music.
The album opens with They shut me up, where agitated, insistent string writing mirrors Dickinson’s anger at the societal constraints imposed on her life and voice. In The Soul selects her own Society, lyrical vocal lines collide with jagged rhythms, while I Felt a Funeral uses a driving double bass pulse to evoke the relentless beat of a funeral drum, reflecting the poem’s depiction of psychological collapse. Elsewhere, Puts draws on Baroque dramatic intensity in The Props assist the House, and in Her Face, Time for Three violinist Charles Yang contributes his tenor voice in an intimate and unexpected duet with DiDonato.
What gives the album its exceptional depth is the collaborative process behind it. Over the course of a full year, DiDonato, Time for Three, and Puts workshopped the cycle together—an unusually long and reflective gestation period in today’s classical music landscape. Each rehearsal began not with notes, but with the spoken poetry itself, grounding every musical decision in Dickinson’s language and emotional world.
The result is an album that has already made a profound impact in live performance, eliciting intense emotional responses from audiences—responses that are fully preserved in the recording. Emily – No Prisoner Be is not simply a new release; it is a testament to what contemporary classical music can achieve when composition, performance, and poetry meet in complete artistic trust.
For listeners interested in contemporary classical albums, vocal music releases, and innovative collaborations that push the boundaries of genre, Emily – No Prisoner Be is an essential addition to today’s digital album landscape.
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Cover artwork: © 2026 Time for Three LLC and Joyce DiDonato under exclusive license to PLATOON Ltd.
