Composed
for voice, clarinet, and piano, the music is set to the poetry of
Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Butler Yeats, and Morgan Alexander (with
the composer's collaboration on the lyric of the song Chalk of Time).
1. Chalk of Time
2. We Start in the Sun
3. War
4. Peace
5. The Second Coming
Resonancia
(resonance) was written in the summer of 2003 for the Nuova Musica
International New Music Festival held in Senigallia, Italy where it
received its premiere. Since that time the work has been presented in
other parts of Europe by several pianists and received its US premiere
in April of 2005 with pianist Cristina Valdes. The title of the work
refers to the abundance of overtones that are produced by the repeated
gestures heard during the first part of the work. These dense textures
are contrasted by sparser material heard in the second section, which
includes muting and plucking of the strings inside the piano as well as
more conventional playing. As with much of my music the counterpoint
between register, density, timbre, and pacing are important aesthetic
concerns as is the exploration of the point where silence begins and
sounds end and vice versa.
Nimbus, premiered by Matthew Krejci on a Music Now concert in Sacramento, CA in October, 2002, is a short piece for solo flute written at the request of Perspectives of New Music for their festschrift in honor of Martin Boykan’s seventieth birthday. While no attempt was made to make any specific allusions to Marty’s music, the piece does capture some of the intensely lyrical qualities of it as well as, I would hope, the flexibility and elegance of phrasing found in the music of my primary teacher. After behaving in a characteristic manner for most of the piece, the flute engages in a quasi impersonation of a violin in a ten measure passage near the end. Following this, at the very end, it reverts to typical flute-like behavior in an explicit and whimsical reference to the beginning of the second half of the piece.
Semi-virtuosic in nature, the Ballade exhibits stark contrasts of mood and texture - one movement split into several smaller subsections, including a cadenza.
Singspiel in one act and thirteen scenes.
For singer/actors.
Ranges are as follows:
5 Sopranos, 4 Mezzo sopranos, 1 Alto, 4 Tenors, 3 Baritones, 2 Bass.
Ranges are approximate and can be changed if necessary.
Actors/Singers may duplicate roles within a production.
Plot Summary: Diane Forest is an artistically successful author who makes a deal with Mephistopheles to become financially successful.
Roll Jordan Roll’ (movement one) is a series of genre variations on the African-American spiritual of the same name. The melody was transcribed from a 78rpm recording of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and in turn, this appeared on the 1962 Folkways LP entitled An Introduction to Gospel Song.
1. Hore Cerny; 2. La Pesadilla; 3. Talencourt; 4. Voulez-vous que je vous chante?; 5. Mache dich mein geist bereit (Marcia - "Pseudo-Adagio"); 6. Shir Ha-Shirim
While no Lyric Suite, this is my most ambitious composition to date, combining multiple musical cultures dating over the past 1,000 years. It is dedicated to my wife, Shayna. The first movement owes something to the world of Janacek, and is even based upon a Czech folk tune (which one hears partially disguised at one point).
The composer's own voice is memorialized on the playback tape, which features a speaker (electronically processed voice) having a "conversation" with the orchestra about electronic music and the various sounds that can be synthesized (a la mid-1970s), as a friendly jousting back and forth between the tape and the instrumentalists in the orchestra. Requires a tape operator to stop and start a CD or computer audio files at precise moments in the score.