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Partita for Violoncello & Double Bass

Fantasypiece

The duet version of Fantasypiece for violoncello and double bass was composed in 2001, an arrangement for chamber orchestra was completed in 2002. The title has multiple meanings. The musical language, what I regard as free tonality, is one that I had always wanted to employ but never found occasion to use. By free, I mean employing unusual dissonances in a controlled manner within a tonal framework. The discourse of Fantasypiece involves the presentation of musical passages which set up a polemic between chromatically colored harmonies and tonal ones. The piece opens with a brooding theme featuring the tritone interval, followed by an interlude leading to a liricotheme. Chromatic, transposed variations on that interlude return throughout the piece to frustrate the attempts of increasingly tonal music to prevail over chromatically colored music. One even hears a cantando Neo-Classical sequence with running sixteenth notes a couple of times over the course of the work, as well as a set of ornate, Baroque-like variations on the lirico theme. Near the end of the piece, an extended recapitulation occurs which is utterly devoid of chromatically colored harmonies, making it seem as though that sort of music will prevail: a passionate, celebratory Tango ensues. All of this is to no avail for, in the end, the chromatic harmonies return and the piece ends on the ambiguous interval of the tritone with which it begins.

Cantos for the End of Summer

Not an End of Loving No 2 : No. 2 We 2 Boys Together Clinging

Light Upon the Water

Light Upon the Water was composed as part of a 2013 Composer Fellowship from The McKnight Foundation, a program administered by the American Composers Forum. While Michael Dennis Browne’s text is appropriate for a wedding, it is also too lovely to restrict it to only that purpose. The music is tender and lyrical, and the rhapsodic nature of the movendo section near the end of the piece is not to be missed! Duration: 2:00

Praise Now the Risen Christ

The surprising joy of the Resurrection is conveyed through jubilant fanfares in the accompaniment and a shifting of the rhythm between 3/4 and implied 6/8 meters. As the mood softens, a more melodic section expresses the lyrics, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." After the unaccompanied chorus sings "All glorious Risen Christ" and a brief moment of silence, the piece bursts forth again with fanfares and thicker choral textures that build in excitement to the end. A perfect Easter anthem! Duration: 2:45

Mrs. Noah from Hotel Eden

Mrs. Noah is about middle-aged love. It centers around the relationship between Noah and his wife, Mrs. Noah, a name she hates being called. In this light-hearted aria, she complains that, everywhere she visits, people call her Mrs. Noah. She mentions different locations that she has been in the world: France, Genoa, Samoa, along the Mississippi, Hawaii, and Shenandoah. With these places, the music changes to reflect musical styles that are native to each location. At the end of the aria, she pleads to be called by her “real name,” Rosalyn! Mrs. Noah is the aria from Act II of the Three-Act Chamber Opera, Hotel Eden.

How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place

The text of How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place is taken from Psalm 84:1–4 (NIV). The piece is an attempt to portray the beauty of the heavenly place where our Lord dwells. It is so lovely that the “soul yearns, even faints” to be in presence of the Lord. The opening statement returns near the middle of the piece and then again at the end. The climax comes at “O Lord Almighty, my King and my God,” followed by the worship of those dwelling in God’s house. Written for and premiered by From Age to Age in the spring of 2019 as part of their Made in Minnesota concerts. Duration: 4:30