Contemporary American composer of opera, dance, theatre, and film music, as well as of songs, New York City-based Ricky Ian Gordon set ten texts by Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes, for the soprano Harolyn Blackwell in 1992.

Says Gordon of this work:

"GENIUS CHILD is inspired by Harolyn's voice and spirit, the inevitable singability of Hughes' poems--and my concerns with growing up different--and developing a strange, skewed view of the world--which, perhaps--becomes one's voice, one's aesthetic. ...Musically, I would say these songs are definitely urban in sound, informed by simple, recognizable rhythms and easy forms.

In a way the cycle consists of one major element: watching. Watching the world go by, watching life happen and, in turn, the awakening of compassion, of spirituality, of joy."