Selected Works

for bass-baritone and piano

This setting of the Edgar Allen Poe's "Lenore" portrays the two mysterious and contrasting characters, Pious One and Guy de Vere, as they quarrel over how to best lament sweet Lenore's untimely death. In keeping with the dark and evocative text, the music is spiritual, infinite, and phantasmagorical in nature.ca.   

8:00      [Listen]

for mezzo-soprano and piano

I. Katy Cruel

A version of this song was popular in the American Revolutionary period.  The song depict a woman in a contradictory terms, sometimes defiantly knowing who she is while also admitting she is a reviled non-entity.  It is a bit of nonsense song, but we can tell that Katy was wild and frenetic nature, but she also bore some sadness in her life. The music reels with her unbridled spirit.

II. Fare Thee Well

This song was first discovered by famed musicologist and folklorist  John Lomax in 1909.  He came across an African American woman named Dink washing clothes on the back of the Brazos River near College Station, Texas.  He was told by the locals that she loved to sing, and after some coaxing by Lomax’s wife, Bess (Brown) Lomax, she sang this haunting folk song for the recording device. My setting contextualizes her song of melancholy, imbuing it with a harmonic language and a slow rhythmic pace that not only conveys the unrelenting heat and humidity that surrounds her as she works and sings, but also the oppressive and doleful thoughts of lost love that plague her mind.

III. Slack Your Rope

Also called “The Maid Freed from the Gallows,” this song has been in the folksong repertoire for centuries, and its origin is not known.  The story here is of a young maiden convicted of some crime and sentenced to hang.  All that is required is gold to pay her debts (or to bribe the hangman) so that she can be set free, but her father, mother, and others close to her will not pay.  Finally, here comes her lover.  Will he pay for deliverance?

13:00      [Listen]

for soprano and piano

Now blue October, smoky in the sun,
Must end the long, sweet summer of the heart.
The last brief visit of the birds is done;
They sing the autumn songs before they part.
Listen, how lovely - there’s the thrush we heard
When June was small with roses, and the bending
Blossom of branches covered nest and bird,
Singing the summer in, summer unending-
Give me your hand once more before the night,
See how the meadows darken with the frost,
How fades the green that was the summer’s light.
Beauty is only altered, never lost,
And love, before the cold November rain,
Will make its summer in the heart again.

                                      Robert Nathan 

9:30      [Listen]

A work in an eight-part divided choir arrangement that allows for a full exploration of light and color.  I treat the choir as an orchestral ensemble, allowing me to “orchestrate” the voices as well as develop intricate counterpoint for this beautiful text.

6:00

for mixed choir (satb) and piano

A setting for mixed choir and piano of Psalm 8:3-4 and a text by Christina Rossetti.

When I behold Thy heavens, even the works of Thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained,

What is mankind, that Thou art mindful of them? 

and the Sons and Daughters of men that Thou carest for them?

Lord, purge our eyes to see
Within the seed a tree,
Within the glowing egg a bird,
Within the shroud a butterfly:

Till taught by such, we see
Beyond all creatures Thee,
And hearken for Thy tender word,
And hear it, "Fear not: it is I."

4:00      [Listen]

for mens vocal sextet

I composed this piece in memory of Thomas Binkley (1932-1995). 

The summer ends, and it is time 

To face another way. 

Our theme Reversed, we harvest the last row 

To store against the cold, undo 

The garden that will be undone. 

We grieve under the weakened sun 

To see all earth's green fountains dried,  

And fallen all the works of light. 

You do not speak, and I regret 

This downfall of the good we sought 

As though the fault were mine. 

I bring The plow to turn the shattering 

Leaves and bent stems into the dark,  

From which they may return. 

At work, I see you leaving our bright land,  

The last cut flowers in your hand.

"The Summer Ends," by Wendell Berry, from Sabbaths (North Point Press)   

5:00      [Listen]

for mixed choir (satb)

Appropriate for both church and concert settings, this intimate work reminds us that our time here is short.  

Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us, so be quick to love and make haste to be kind.And may the blessing of the One who made us, and the One who loves us, and the One who travels with us, be with you and those you love this day and always. Amen. 

Adapted from Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)

3:30      [Listen]

for women's choir (ssaa)

for solo cello

This is a virtuosic piece that showcases the cello's expansive range of colors and registration while challenging the player's technical capabilities.

5:00      [Listen]

for solo piano

These four movements for solo piano are tones poems based upon mystic texts by 13th c. Cistercian nun, Mechtild of Magdeburg. Rather than creating a musical narrative of the poetry, I focused on my response to these words, and often my responses surprised me. As I connected with the imagery evoked in the poems, I found that my internal responses were vigorous and passionate, as opposed to serene as the title of the work might imply. Prayers and Meditations is about what burns behind the quietude of prayerfulness.

17:30      [Listen]

for solo piano

In my formative years as a young classical musician, it was the mystifying and eccentric virtuosi who first seized my attention and helped generate in me a perfervid desire to keep listening and learning. I also learned that the unreasonableness, indelicate behavior and personal disasters that defined the lives of many of these past masters were a part of the art - oft forgivable when remembering their astonishing talents. Coined by the French playwright, novelist and movie director Jean Cocteau, monstre sacré literally means “holy terror” and describes that unconventional, strange or even vile artist who is so revered by the public that in spite of the maestro’s most horrific personal habits he or she seems always forgiven.! My piece for solo piano is a tribute to these “monsters.”!!

Entrée et intrus is our introduction to the prodigy: an overwhelming individual who pretentiously and repeatedly interrupts the party’s conversation with calls of attention to her brilliance and authority. In the style of a regal French overture, the music is heraldic, explosive, and even unseemly as the monstre!breaks the continuity of our lives, our suppositions and mundanities.!!

For the monstre sacré in classical music, the works of J. S. Bach are often the repertoire paid special attention (we think of Glenn Gould, for example). 

The fast-paced second movement, Jeux et théorie: connexion libre avec Bach, caricatures the music of the baroque composer with its strict counterpoint and motor rhythms, but the themes are freely associated with each other, abruptly taking the music in a variety of tonal directions.! I composed the movement as if I challenged the monstre to choose gigue motives from several Bach suites and make them all work together extempore and in perfect whimsy.

Amour parfait is a romantic piece performed by the artist... for the artist. Some of the themes and the accompaniment figures are constructed as palindromes as if the monstre was holding a mirror up to himself and falling in love over and over again in sweet conceit.

The final movement, Rondeau et sortie: le monstre danse, is a celebration of this holy terror as the artist makes a final exit.! As the piece began so it ends with panache and sovereignty.

16:30      [Listen]

for solo guitar

This virtuosic piece for solo guitar takes its inspiration and form from the first and third sections of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem by the same name. Rilke's poem depicts the biblical scene of David "soothing" the soul of King Saul with his harp (I Samuel 16) and highlights the paradoxes and internal conflicts between them.

10:00    

for full orchestra

Thus I Create the Dance is a symphonic poem, a musical analog of John Gould Fletcher’s poem, XXXI from “Irradiations: Sand and Spray.”  When I first read the poem, I was struck by the way it captured my imagination, taking me through a dance driven by a strong force of will, anger, and elation.  The first movement is an introduction to the dance - a warm up - to the second movement, which takes its form and pace directly from the dramatic progression of  Fletcher’s poem:

My stiff-spread arms

Break into sudden gesture;

My feet seize upon the rhythm; My hands drag it upwards: Thus I create the dance. 

I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight: I swim through seas of rain:

I dig my toes into the earth:

I taste the smack of the wind:

 am myself: 

I live. 

The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins:

Professors are still arguing about the past and the future:

I am sick of reading marginal notes on life,

I am weary of following false banners:

I desire nothing more intensely or completely than this present; There is nothing about me you are more likely to notice than my

    being:

Let me therefore rejoice silently,

A golden butterfly glancing against an unflecked wall. 

(from "Irradiations: Sand and Spray," The University of Arkansas Press, 1988; used by permission) 

19:00      [Listen]

A dramatic cantata in six parts on the martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

for tenor solo, SATB choir, and chamber orchestra.

Imprisoned by the Nazis and eventually executed by hanging on April 9, 1945 for his involvement in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer left this world with the grace and peace of a man who acted decisively upon his Christian faith.  This dramatic cantata sets the poetic texts Dietrich composed while awaiting trial in the Tegel military prison. Altogether, his words set in this cantata depict an abstract  but powerful expression of faith by a man lonely and desperate for justice yet absolutely confident and at peace with God's ultimate goodness and righteousness. In six-movements we hear Bonhoeffer describe his own terrifying predicament as well as that of his "fellow sufferers," while his mind resolutely awaits "that midnight/ In whose fearfully streaming brilliance/ The evil perish for anguish/ And the good overcome with joy."  In the final movement, we eventually hear a high note held long in the cello section signaling Dietrich's execution, but what follows is music of hope and joy that set's his words to the faithful: "flourish Earth... be free."

Text from Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

26:00      [Listen]

for full orchestra

As I searched for this work's point of departure, I found a remarkable poem by Sherry Fairchok, a Pennsylvania native, entitled "Ode to Coal." In her poem she evokes imagery of "an ancient frozen lake, a black stone palace, a mountain of buried night," relating a sentiment of loss, as the mines had looted from the mountains something gloriously prehistoric. Reverie focuses on the idea of mining - extracting something we wish to keep, discarding material we do not want, all the while moving forward. This notion of mining guided many of my melodic and harmonic decisions during the course of Reverie's composition, and as the piece unfolds in performance, we are moved through densities of sound, darkest at the center of our journey. Two folk tunes from the Pennsylvania mining regions are woven throughout the composition: "The Avondale Mine Disaster" and the hymn tune "Dunlap's Creek." These tunes are often clouded and obscured; but then just as the mining stories of tragedy and faith have been clarified so as to be told and remembered by others, the melodies also become rarified and ascend to a place of reverance in the music.

12:00     [Listen]

for wind ensemble 

Fast Track is a celebratory piece for wind ensemble, and the title is an apt description of the work as a whole. The piece begings with a brass flourish that provides us entrée into a relentless and fast-paced race through several discrete sections of music, each separated by transitions or passageways. Many of the themes featured throughoutFanfares are derived from a distinctive galloping motive that propels us through much of the race. Exactly at the middle of the track, we find ourselves at a “pit stop,” and with the pulse still revving high, the percussion group and trombones perform a long chorale set against a running engine of cannons in the woodwinds. Now somewhat refreshed, we run through the track again, only this time more quickly. We exit the fast track as we began - with a fanfare to the finish line.

8:00      [Contact me to listen to a MIDI playback]

for full orchestra

Syncopations is all at once a fanfare and a dance for orchestra, and as the title indicates, nearly every theme has characteristics which thwart a regular flow of rhythm. The music sounds “off beat,” and this is what drives feet to dance. Lots of percussion, “pop tunes,”and balanced phrases also help get the orchestra moving. The word“syncopation” derives from the Latin term syncopare, “to swoon,”and this idea helped me shape the final bewildering measures of music-dreamy and strange with “seagull” effects in the cello section, a simple harp progression, and glassy wood winds overlaying a set of sandpaper blocks that keep the rhythmic pulse going until the end. What better way to end the dance than to fall into a swoon?

7:00      [Listen]