William Blake’s Inn

A Visit to William Blake’s Inn is a book of children’s poetry by Nancy Willard, and it won the Newbery Award in 1982. Ms. Willard kindly gave me permission to set it to music in 2003, and it is currently available for production. Contact me if you’re interested.

Here are the scores and mp3 files for William Blake’s Inn. All scores are piano/vocal scores (PDF).  Orchestral scores are available.

William Blake’s Inn

a piece for chorus, soloists, orchestra, puppets, dancers, and everyone

We visit the Inn and through the course of a day or so meet the odd and magical inhabitants, including William Blake himself.

If you’re here to look over the piece and don’t want to plow through the whole 45 minutes, I would suggest downloading the scores for #11 and #17. Listen to those two.  You’ll be back for the rest of it.

  1. Prelude | mp3
  2. William Blake’s Inn for Innocent & Experienced Travelers | score | mp3
  3. Blake’s Wonderful Car Delivers Us Wonderfully Well | score | mp3
  4. A Rabbit Reveals My Room | score | mp3
  5. The Sun and Moon Circus Soothes the Wakeful Guests | score | mp3
  6. The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives | score | mp3
  7. The King of Cats Orders an Early Breakfast | score | mp3
  8. The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud | score | mp3
  9. Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room | score | mp3
  10. The Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, and Believe | score | mp3
  11. Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way | score | two-piano score| mp3
  12. When We Come Home, Blake Calls for Fire | score | mp3
  13. The Marmalade Man Makes a Dance to Mend Us | score | mp3
  14. The King of Cats Sends a Postcard to His Wife | score | mp3
  15. The Tiger Asks Blake for a Bedtime Story | score | mp3
  16. Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor | score | mp3
  17. Epilogue (underscoring) score | mp3

Here’s a video of “Milky Way” featuring the lyrics, for easy listening/viewing:

9 thoughts on “William Blake’s Inn

  1. Dale,

    This is Eric Lindbloom, Nancy Willard’s husband. Emailing you because I mislaid your street address.

    Thank you for your beautiful letter after Nancy’s death. As you can imagine, there is an achingly large hole in my life.

    Nancy was not only a marvelous writer, she was a wonderful human being, in her many roles — wife, mother, teacher.

    I would love to hear how the Blake performance went in Moscow (Idaho).

    Best,
    Eric

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