DECLARATION, 2005 (20 min.)

Movements

*Thorn (poem by Ann Woodward)

*...all men and women are... (from the Declaration of Independence)

*Thousands of Feet Below You (poem by Alice Walker)

*Whom do you call angel now? (Poem by David Adams)

Soprano, violin, piano

Premiere: 11/16/05 Lucy Shelton, soprano,  Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Festival, Cleveland, OH

Declaration is a set of songs addressing violence and war.  The first and third songs look at the inhumanity of war in different ways.  Ann Woodward points out in the poem of the first song, Thorn, that one can watch the tragic details of a war on TV as if it were a story and not a representation of real people being killed.  The poem of the third song, Thousands of Feet Below You, by Alice Walker portrays the terror of an innocent young victim running from a bomb.  In the first song, the theme of the basic commonality of all human beings threads through Woodwrd's poem, Thorn.  The second song, ...all men and women..., continues this theme with an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence about the equality of all.  The fourth song, Whom do you call angel now? is a song of mourning.  It was taken from a set of poems by David Adams called September Songs, which he wrote after September 11.

Thorn and Whom do you call angel now? were originally intended to be folk songs.  In the end, I decided to make them an integral part of this song cycle.  In fact, these two songs were written first.  However setting these works as art songs proved to be a real struggle.  After trying a plethora of possibilities, I decided the strongest presentation would be to leave the accompaniment simple, even stark at times.  The 21st century is a time of plurality in musical styles.  The past periods of music are available for composers to draw upon, including the atonal period which lasted for the entire twentieth century (and is still going on).  I am exploring this rich referential diversity in my music.  Whereas the first and fourth songs are tonal and quasi folksong-like, the fury of Alice Walker's poem, Thousands of Feet Below You, called for strict twelve-tone treatment.

LIGHT, 2001 (16 min.)
Movements:
*The Fiery Power
*Nederlandse Light
*Atoms

Soprano, harpsichord, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion
Commission: Cleveland Museum of Art
Premiere: 6/6/01 Tapestry: Chamber Music of Margaret Brouwer, Cleveland Museum of Art,Cleveland, OH

This work was written for harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell, soprano Sandra Simon and The Cleveland Museum of Art honoring their acquisition of a German style harpsichord (after Michael Mietke) built by Bruce Kennedy of Amsterdam. In writing for these outstanding early music performers from Apollo’s Fire, and for the harpsichord, it was the perfect opportunity to draw inspiration from earlier centuries. My intent was to create a collage within my own music of texts and music from the twelfth to the mid-twentieth century.

The twelfth century nun, Hildegard von Bingen, was an important religious figure whose mystical visions of God are filled with glowing and unique imagery. A few sentences from one of these visions are used as the text in the first movement. The English translation from Latin (by Robert Carver) is used with permission of the Crossroads Publishing Co. In Nederlandse Licht, I have quoted briefly from two musical works that come from my own Dutch heritage, one secular and one religious. Since the overlay and mixing of the secular and the religious is so prominent in Dutch history, this combination seems right. I have picked the chanson, L’autre d’antan, by Netherlands composer Johannes Ockeghem (ca.1425 – 1497), and De XXVII Psalm, God is mijn licht, mijn heil, wien zou ik vreezen? The latter is taken from a Dutch part-book format of the Psalms (Het Boek nevens de Gezangen bij de Hervormde Kerk van Nederland, 1773), which has been handed down in my family. Even though both quoted works were originally vocal, this movement features the harpsichord and does not use voice. The final movement, Atoms, mixes historical recitative style with my own contemporary musical language. The vocal text is a statement that physicist Richard Feynman made in a 1961 lecture to undergraduates at Caltech, as found in James Gleick’s book, Genius.

The light, sun, water, and stars of Hildegard and Psalm 27 seem in some mystical way to combine very well with the 20th century understanding of atoms.

Light (text):
1. The Fiery Power
I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every living spark. I flame above the beauty of the fields; I shine in the waters; in the sun, the moon, and the stars, I burn. And by means of the airy wind, I stir everything into quickness with a certain invisible life which sustains all. And so I, the fiery power, lie hidden in these things and they blaze from me. All these things live in their own essence and are without death, since I am Life.
– Hildegard von Bingen

2. Nederlandse Licht
Musical Quotes:
Het Boek nevens de Gezangen bij de Hervormde Kerk van Nederland, 1773
L’autre d’antan by Johannes Ockeghem (ca.1425-1497)

3. Atoms
Atoms. All things are made of atoms, little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.
– Richard Feynman

Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material.
Recording available.

MISSA BREVIS, 1991 (22 min.)
Movements:
*Kyrie
*Gloria
*Sanctus
*Benedictus
*Agnus Dei

Movements may be performed individually or in any combination.

Men’s chorus and piano (3 Chimes or Hand Bells, played by chorus members).

Commission: The Washington and Lee Glee Club for the Intercollegiate Men's Choruses

Premiere: 3/20/92 Intercollegiate Men's Choruses National Conference, Lexington, VA

Missa Brevis was commissioned by The Washington and Lee Glee Club for the Intercollegiate Men's Choruses. The progression from movement to movement has something of a story line. The overall plan of the work incorporates musical references to various religious personality types. The Kyrie and Gloria represent two perceptions of the early Christian church. The Kyrie, fashioned after Gregorian Chant, depicts the pure and spiritual. The Gloria, almost militant in places, depicts the political winners in the early struggles over issues such as who would lead the church, how the superstructure would be set up and which books of all those that had been written would be included in the New Testament.

The more contemporary personality depicted in the Sanctus is tentative and questioning. However, it resolves into a momentary burst of strength and affirmation at the end of the movement. Bells ring while the chorus sings Osanna. The "bells" section was inspired, by the tolling of church bells in a Swiss Alpine village, where the composer stayed. The bells rang at regular intervals for many minutes. The rhythmical relationships created by these three bells, which each rang at a different speed, was constantly changing and very intriguing.

In the traditional manner, after the priest's simple intoning of the Benedictus the Osanna is restated. In the Agnus Dei the psyche has elevated emotionally to a level of acceptance and peace.

Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material.
Recording available.

SING WITH THE LARK, 2003 (4 min.)

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

SATB, a cappella, optional piano, optional handbells. Catalog #CM8828. Also available with chamber or standard orchestra accompaniment.

TWO SONGS, 1990 (9 min.)
Movements:
*Ma Mata
*I Sang

Soprano, flute, violin, cello, tuba or trombone, percussion, piano

Premiere: 5/18/90 Christine Schadeberg, Soprano, Sonoklect Ensemble, Lexington, VA

After participating recently in a class on mythology I was inspired to study further the goddess of the period 2500-700 B.C. Anthropological studies suggest that in this time the prominent deity was a goddess who was called by various names in different parts of the world, Ma Mata, Demeter, Egg of Heaven, Queen of the Bright Night, etc. The goddess was worshipped by non-aggressive cultures who were agrarian, intuitive, and in touch with the earth and natural forces. The text for “MA MATA” is a result of this study. Some of the terminology in this text is an amalgamation of language gleaned from various books on the subject, while the rest is my own. “I Sang” is a setting of a short poem by Carl Sandburg.

Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material.

WASHINGTON AND LEE HYMN, 1990 (3 min.)

SATB a cappella

Commission: Washington and Lee University

Premiere: 3/19/91 Choral Concert, Lenfest Center, Lexington, VA

The Washington and Lee Hymn was written for Washington and Lee University at the request of Gordon Spice, Choral Conductor. In many ways it has taken the place of the Alma mater and is commonly sung at school functions.

See also: Arrangements for Chorus (SATB) and Orchestra.

Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material.
Recording available.

WINTER DREAM, 2000 (7 min.)

Soprano and piano

Commission: Beverley Rinaldi

Premiere: 3/5/00 Beverley Rinaldi, soprano, Anita Pontremoli, pianist, The Cleveland Institute of Music

Dream-like, free and rhapsodic, this vocalise begins with a calm, introspective serenity that develops fairly quickly into a middle section of restlessness and agitation. This quite tonal vocalise grows entirely from the opening phrase using retrograde, inversion, motive and development and harmonic evolution.

Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material.
Recording available.