Performance practicality:  Piano preparations for all 8 songs, placed on, not in, strings. The main pianist plays mostly on the keyboard; the assistant pianist works with the preparations.  Microphone is need for the piano. Each song has specific instructions for performance. timing device (stopwatch or computer) and some special notations.

FANTASIES FOR ADULTS AND OTHER CHILDREN have as their text eight poems by e.e. cummings, four or which are about children or as seen through a child’s eyes.  The poems are arranged cyclically, with Halloween beginning the set (“hist whist”), proceeding to Christmas (“little tree”), and ending with two about spring (“Tumbling-hair” and “in Just Spring”).  The other four are more adult views on different aspects of life but retain the famous cummings eccentricity and sensitive charm.  The set may be performed as a whole or with any combination of songs, as in traditional lieder.  Composed in 1978-79, FANTASIES was premiered on February 2, 1980 by the Voices of Change New Music Ensemble, Linda Baer Anderson, soloist, for the Festival of Women’s Music, at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.  The music was recorded in 1982 by Nancy Hill, soprano, and pianists Mark Says and John Ferguson, recording engineer Barton McLean, and became a Capstone CPS-8663 CD, now Parma/Ravello Records (Naxos) (scroll down to McLean, Priscilla) in 1999, The name of the song cycle is also the name of the album, with three other Priscilla McLean song groups, some including acting and recorded sounds.