She Told Me This... reimagines musical ideas and themes from my opera The Bonesetter’s Daughter through one character, Ruth, the American born daughter of a Chinese mother with many secrets. These secrets have crippled Ruth and shaped her life, though she knows nothing of her mother’s past. Guided by the ghost of her grandmother, known only as Precious Auntie, she uncovers these stories as her mother’s memory slowly fades. This work will focus more overtly on the nature of stories and storytelling with Ruth channeling the voices of her mother, the ghost of her randmother, and the unmistakable presence of the family’s Chinese past. Like most Americans, the idea of this past mythic homeland shapes the narrative of the family’s present in America. We carry these stories in our bones. (Stewart Wallace)