God rest you merry, Gentlemen (SAB)
- Traditional melody set to a quick, shifting meter
SAB
El Cant dels ocells [Carol of the Birds] (Short alto solo, SAB, piano)
- Lyrical lines with a very lively piano
- Commentary on the triumph of time and decay
SATB (and other mixed chorus voicing)
Gospel of Mrs Sadie (High solo, SATB, piano)
- In memory of the saintly women of the Church
Take my Hand [an anniversary anthem] (Alto solo, SATB, piano)
- Most of the men’s parts are in unison
Female Chorus & Girls’ Choir
Weary Land (SA, piano)
- Mature, Spiritual lullaby on suffering of Mary’s fleeing family; for HS choirs
Male Chorus & Boys’ Choir
His foot on the Treetop (TBB)
- Christmas lullaby with a soft, rich sound
Zolgotz! (Treble, Cambiata, Baritone, Bass, piano)
- From a folk poem on the McKinley assassination
Published (by G. Schirmer)
Boatmen Stomp (Treble, Cambiata, Baritone, piano)
- Emmett’s “Boatman Dance” set to new music; a classic festival piece
Sky can still Remember (SAB, piano)
- A carol; one of Gray’s favorite works
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s Day?
- Flowing, warm setting of the world’s best known sonnet
- Simple piece about the worth of simple, classic beauty
It takes a Village (Various soloists, SMATbB)
- Rhythmic celebration of community
Map of the World (Various soloists, SMATB, piano)
- Funny cantata on the evolution of political geography
“Book of Sonnets” (SAB, piano) - a collection in progress
- Lyrical setting, mostly in unison and designed for a beginning choir
How oft when thou, my Music, music Play’st
- Jazzy valentine for the keyboardist
1. A Song of Myself (SA, piano)
- Lyrical, bi-tonal setting of a young runaway’s discovery
2. The Dove (SMA, piano)
- Lyrical piece on misunderstanding a wild heart; set to an octatonic scale
“Posthumous Keats:”
3. Meg Merrilies (SA, piano)
- Celebration of the strange in compound meter
- Noble lines on the immortality of verse over a hypnotic ostinato
“Modern Living” (SMATB) - orig. for 5 voices but most edited for full choir & soloists
1. Mister Gecko
2. Cave
3. Modern Age
4. Blue Whale
- Lovely lines of absolute love’s unspoken fear
- Energetic telling of a witty sonnet on the love life of bankers!
- A musical field of flowers painted with the nodding lilt of a meter in five
1. Nightingale (SMA, piano)
- Tonal ballad on love and blaming the music
Didn’t it Rain (SATB, piano)
- Fun, wild storm for everyone
“Needlepoint:”
2. Needle’s Eye (SA, piano)
- Fun, little nonsense rag
3. Over Me (SMA, piano)
- Poignant, flowing lullaby
- Predictions of a reluctant lover’s fate set to a spirited proclamation
That time of Year (SAB a cappella)
- Sparse setting of a beautiful sonnet on old age
- A tourist completely lost in the Global Village
- Neo-Paleolithic redecorating gets out of control
- Apathy is hip when five voices cocoon in technology; Bass solo featured
- The ultimate Holiday gift, Mezzo solo featured
- Energetic look at the economic side of way too much caffeine
- Hymn of assuredness on immortality; with one fatal flaw
(Baritone solo, SAB, piano)
(Baritone solo, SAB, piano)
- Other beauties are just shadows in this Blues-inspired call & response
No longer mourn for me when I am Dead
- Driven piece on the war between eternal love and eternal memory
- A dark overture on a frustrated desire to be noticed
What’s in the Brain (SSAATB a cappella)
- Repetitive rhythms & a rich texture help transform Old Love to First Love
What’s in the Brain [from “Book of Sonnets”] (SSAATB a cappella)
- Repetitive rhythms & a rich texture help transform Old Love to First Love
“Centenary Antiphon:”
1. Pied Beauty (SATB, pipe organ)
- Speckled celebration of God’s imperfect natural world
2. Great God! (Unison, pipe organ)
- Concluding hymn to Nature’s God
Fear no more (SAB)
- Shakespeare’s beautiful lamentation set a cappella
- Lyrical comparison of the Bard’s verse to the promises of the self-crowned
When I consider everything that Grows
- Nature’s flow grafted to a free-meter cultivated celebration
- Lively piece on how true love makes our frantic ego look kind of silly
Song of the Gardener (SAB, piano)
- Folk-like setting of an allegorical love poem; can be used for Holy Week
- Flowing, lyrical dedication of spirit
- Fast pace celebration of truth in praise
- A very lyrical dance of timelessness
- Celebration of love that is without a need for the perfect word
When you were gone I wished you were here (Tenor solo, TBB)
- A soloist and wordless choir on not having the right words
As a decrepit father takes Delight
- Swinging little piece with interdental fricatives
- Mutual courtesies dance a stately minuet over the loneliness of absence
- Time’s weariness is overcome by contract in this stately tresillo.
- Lyrical waltz on the futility of restriction
- Playful senses give way to an enslaved heart in this fast dance
- Simple Benediction on walking thru the darkness with the Lord
Will there really be a “Morning”? (Baritone solo, SAB)
- An unsynchronized setting of Emily Dickinson’s search for hope
- Driven argument that both faults & graces may be seductively misused
- Nothing looks true in this slow, turbulent journey
- Stately allegory of a beautiful day’s progression and deterioration
- Race of counterpoint likened to progeny
- Mostly unison march from fantasy into reality
Is it thy Will? (SAB a cappella)
- Waking self-aware from a flowing dream
- Fun little dance mocking hyperbole
Mine eye hath play’d the Painter
- A quick march chiding technique for missing the whole point
- Little grotesque dance on the injustice of an evil reputation
Emily’s Birds (Unison, piano)
- Three short songs for Children’s Chorus after the poems of Emily Dickinson
- A gentle dismissal of a lover’s faults becomes a confession of self-guilt
When thou shalt be dispos’d to set me Light
- Love’s perjury in a lyrical octotonic setting
- Madrigal on the frustration of a loyal, unrequited love
