Large Ensemble Works
Orchestra
The Burial of the Dead (2006)
The Burial of the Dead is sometimes called a symphonic poem, but it’s meant much more literally in this case than usual. The words of the poem are set to instrumental music, syllable for syllable, just as if the instruments were voices. The words appear in the score, underneath the instrumental parts. The Burial of the Dead is the first section of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.
Choir
Two Yeats Songs (2008)
These choral songs are adaptations of two of the three Yeats settings from my theatrical chamber work, Scenes and Songs from Yeats. These two in particular, The Lake Isle of Innisfree and He Wishes for the Clothes of Heaven, sound particularly rich and warm for full chorus.
Ein Gott Vermags (2007)
This choral song sets one of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus. The poem is about the limits of art, and human imagination, comparing the weak power of a human poet to the power of Apollo himself. It’s the only thing I’ve ever set in German, but it won’t be the last.
Six Homeric Hymns (2004)
George Chapman did one of the most famous English translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but he also translated these shorter poems, the Homeric Hymns. I’m always looking out for translations of classical texts that are old enough to be in the public domain, and the Chapman definitely qualifies.
This Bird of Dawning Singeth (2002)
This piece was my first big performance. I wrote it as a senior in high school for a contest by the Harmonium choir in Northern New Jersey. The text comes from the first scene of Hamlet, and even back then I made sure to include the text spoken as well as sung.
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