Szymborska Poems (2009) 17'

Awarded the 2010 Dean's Prize at Indiana University
[For flute and piano]
31 October 2009, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
(Alan Tomasetti, flute; Bethany Pietroniro, piano)

Program Note

i. Greeting the Supersonics

ii. Under One Small Star

iii. Miracle Fair

i. Greeting the Supersonics

Faster than sound today,
faster than light tomorrow,
we’ll turn sound into the Tortoise
and light into the Hare.

Two venerable creatures
from the ancient parable,
a noble team, since ages past
competing fair and square.

You ran so many times
across this lowly earth;
now try another course,
across the lofty blue.

The track’s all yours. We won’t
get in your way: by then
we will have set off chasing
ourselves rather than you.

Listen to i. Greeting the Supersonics:

ii. Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all.
Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
Your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don’t pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man.
I know I won’t be justifies as long as I live,
Since I myself stand in my own way.
Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Listen to ii. Under One Small Star:

iii. Miracle Fair

Common place miracle:
that so many commonplace miracles happen.

An ordinary miracle:
in the dead of night
the barking of invisible dogs.

One miracle out of many:
a small, airy cloud
yet it can block a large and heavy moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder tree reflected in the water,
and that it's backwards left to right
and that it grows there, crown down
and never reaches the bottom,
even thought the water is shallow.

An everyday miracle:
winds weak to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

First among equal miracles:
cows are cows.

Second to none:
just this orchard
from just that seed.

A miracle without a cape and top hat:
scattering white doves.

A miracle, for what else could you call it:
today the sun rose at three-fourteen
and will set at eight-o-one.

A miracle, less surprising than it should be:
even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,
it still has more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the world is everywhere.

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:
the unthinkable
is thinkable.

Listen to iii. Miracle Fair:

Szymborska Poems takes its names from three of my favorite poems by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska. Though it is by no means a programmatic work, I used the text as a departure point to create a piece that is perhaps a bit more rhetorical in quality. The formal structure of the piece is similar to that of a “sonata” with three movements in moderate, slow, fast tempi.

Orchestral

Chamber

Solo

Vocal

Orchestral Works

Ringing the Quiet (2011) 5'
Written for the Britten-Pears Programme at Aldeburgh Music.
[For chamber orchestra]
22 July 2011, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK
22 June 2012 (forthcoming), Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK

Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (2009 rev. 2010) 14'
Awards: 2010 Morton Gould Young Composer Honorable Mention from the ASCAP Foundation;
Certificate of Achievement from New York Youth Symphony's First Music 27;
2010 Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra's commissioning prize.
[two versions: 1(picc).1(eh).1.1/1.1.1/2perc/hrp/pno(cel)/s. vln/2.1.1.1 or 1(picc).1(eh).1.1/1.1.1/2perc/pno/s. vln/2.1.1.1]
31 October 2009, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
31 July 2010, Jewett Fine Arts Center Auditorium, Wellesley Composers Conference, Wellesley, MA (Wellesley Sinfonietta)

The Riddle Man's Night Song (2008) 3'
Written for Indiana University's Kids Compose project.
[For full orchestra]
15 April 2009, Musical Arts Center, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (IndianaUniversity Concert Orchestra)

Chamber Works

Szymborska Poems (2009) 17' [For flute and piano]
Awarded the 2010 Dean's Prize at Indiana University; 31 October 2009, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Alan Tomasetti, flute; Bethany Pietroniro, piano)

Duo (2008) 6' [For violin and cello]
Selected for perfomance in the 2009 Midwest Composers' Symposium; 9 July 2008, Neue Synagogue, Berlin, Germany; 14 February 2009, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Michigan (Sarah Saviet, violin; Yotam Baruch, cello)

...from travelers' accounts (2008) 17' [For violin, horn and piano]
16 April 2009, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Romuald Grimbert-Barré, violin; Julia Filson, horn; Batiste Rodrigues, piano)

Three Scarlet Moods (2007) 14' [For clarinet and piano]
Commissioned by the Brillaner Duo.; Awarded a 2007 Morton Gould Young Composer Award from the ASCAP Foundation; 28 October 2007, Concert Artist Guild Auditions, New York, NY; 18 October 2007, TriArea Concerts, Philadelphia, PA; 16 April 2007, Williams Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA; (All performances were given by the Brillaner Duo.)

Diversions (2006) 12' [For cello and piano]
5 August 2007, Salle de Colone, Fountainbleau, France (Rachel Gawell, cello and Peter Liou, piano); 20 February 2007, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Maria DiMeglio, cello; Bethany Pietroniro, piano)

String Trio (2006) 9' [For violin, viola and cello]
Written for the Yellow Barn Young Artists' Program.; June 2006, Yellow Barn Concert Hall, Putney, VT (Laura Lutzke, violin; Wendy Richman, viola; Patrick McGuire, cello)

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross (2006) 15' [For two cellos]
14 April 2006, Sacred Heart Church, Haworth, NJ

String Quartet (2005) 12' [For two violins, viola and cello]

Duo (2004) 5' [For violin and cello]

Solo Works

Prelude Number One Entitled the Egocentric Woman Thief (2010) 5' [For piano solo]
Written for the Freund-Haguenauer studio collaboration at Indiana University.
8 April, 2010, Ford Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Colin DeJong, piano)

Chaconne (2007) 6' [For violin solo]
Written for Hammer and Nail, a collaborative project with the Indiana University Modern Dance Department.
27 April 2007, Waldron Arts Center, Bloomington, IN
28 April 2007, Waldron Arts Center, Bloomington, IN (Jenna Sherry, violin)

Image (2007) 5' [For piano solo]
Written for the Freund-Haguenauer studio collaboration at Indiana University.
12 April 2007, Ford Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Jonathan Oddie, piano)

Doodle (2006) 4' [For clarinet solo]
June 2006, Recorded at the Yellow Barn Young Artists' Program by Shirley Brill.

Colored Leaf, Fallen (2005) 3' [For flute solo]

Vocal/Choral Works

Living Must Be Done Out Loud (2009) 10' [For 12 voices (SSSAAATTTBBB) and percussion]
Written in collaboration with poet Ralph Nazareth.
31 October 2009, Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Glass (2005) 3' [For soprano and piano]