It’s been 150 years since American poet Walt Whitman’s seminal work, “Leaves of Grass,” was published. It’s about time someone put his lyrical poetry to music.

“Walt Whitman’s ‘I Hear America Singing,’” does just that, with poems by Whitman and three other American poets set to music that reflects uniquely American musical traditions.

The concert of original compositions by Seattle composer David Paul Messler will be presented June 2 at Grace Episcopal Church on Bainbridge Island. Messler, on piano, will be accompanied by Bainbridge Island mezzo-soprano Barbara Hume.

Hume and Messler first met in 2000 when she was the featured soloist for the Bainbridge Chorale’s premiere of his setting of the 23rd Psalm.

“I fell in love with the piece and told him I wanted to work with him,” she said.

Messler developed the idea for doing a series of “art songs” based on poetry, focusing on the American poets, the “iconic, long-standing literary giants” whose work he had loved since childhood.

He composed music to go with poems by Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and e.e. cummings. Within a year he had written 750 songs.

The concert Friday will feature songs set to the poems of Whitman, Dickinson, Sandburg and cummings.

Hume, who also teaches English at Bainbridge High School, said that singing the poems she loves has given them new meaning for her.

“There’s a different experience between reading and singing them. Music adds another layer of interpretation,” she said. “The poems are alive each time I sing them.”

The word she uses to describe what happens to the poems when they are set to music is “transmogrify.” “You keep their original essence and add to it. The poems are there in their entirety, but they become their own pieces.”

Poems on the program should be familiar to anyone who enjoys poetry, or has taken a class from Hume. They include Whitman’s “Memories of President Lincoln” and “I Hear America Singing,” Dickinson’s “There is No Frigate Like a Book,” and “Wild Nights! Wild Nights!,” cummings’ “Mister Youse Needn’t Be So Spry,” and “Let It Go,” and Sandberg’s “Jazzy Fantasia” and “Forgotten Wars.”

Messler penned the compositions using a “melting pot” of American musical traditions, including folksongs, hymn, early American art songs, patriotic songs, blues, jazz and ragtime.

Messler said the songs also “reflect my tastes and predilections; and I wanted to write accessible music that could potentially reach and move a large public, music that was lyrical, lively, entertaining, dramatic and always emotionally appealing.”

The genesis of the project came naturally to Messler: his mother was an art song singer and his father was a translator of poetry and short stories. He was writing songs by the age of 5.

He went on to a career as a composer of chamber, orchestral and choral works, as well as many scores for film, dance and theater. He is currently on the music faculty of Seattle Central Community College.

Hume is well known locally for her vocal performances with the Bainbridge Orchestra and Chorale as well as other performances in Kitsap County and Seattle. She has also performed in musical theater in New York, Los Angeles and St. Louis.

This program interweaves her twin passions of poetry and music.

“Walt Whitman’s ‘I Hear America Singing’” will be performed 7:30 p.m. June 2 at Grace Episcopal Church, 8595 Day Rd. E, Bainbridge Island. The concert is free, but donations will be used for the Bainbridge Music and Arts Scholarship fund, which benefits aspiring young writers and musicians in the Bainbridge community.