Performance parts are available on request. Visitors using mobile devices will need to visit via a computer to listen to the sound files using the flash player.
Winds - Strings - Piano - Mixed Ensembles - Orchestra
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| Suite for French Horn | Solo horn in F
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The four movements (March, Song, Thirds, and Rings) allow the horn player to show off technical ability and musical phrasing. The audio file is a MIDI realization. Duration: 8 minutes |
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| Ghost Fires | Tpt(2), Tbn, Hn, Tuba
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An atmospheric piece about the mysteries of the night. The MIDI sound file is only an approximation! Duration: 6.5 minutes |
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| Oxymoron | organ, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon
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The title adheres to the dictionary definition of "oxymoron," that is, two words (here, two types of music) which are juxaposed for poetic or dramatic affect. The aggressive, modern music of the opening is interrupted by a quote from a Gabrielli canzona, but the modern music won't give up and eventually overcomes the sweet-voiced canzona to conclude with a fuggato and boisterous ending. These two excepts, taken from the beginning and middle sections, are from a performance by Dominic Gagliano, Carolyn Fedderly, and Mary Young, bassoons, Susan Nigro, contrabassoon, and Robert Delcamp, organ. Duration: 12 minutes |
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| Strings | |||||
| Aubade | violin and piano | This quiet song for the morning was written for Marie Jennings, who was my mentor when I had just begun to compose. It is meant to reflect the peace and quite of a fall moring on the South Carolina farm on which she lived. Duration: 3 minutes |
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| Winter Morning by a Lake | string quartet
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The title refers to both the lake near my home and to the third movement of Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra Op.16, which originally carried the title "Farben: Sommermorgen am See" This performance is by the Cassatt String Quartet (Muneko Otani & Jennifer Leshnower, violins; Sarah Adams, viola; Nicole Johnson, cello) Duration: 7.5 minutes |
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| Concerto for One Cello | solo 'cello
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This is a condensation of the Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra below, here arranged for cello alone in a dramatic showpiece. (The music at the top of this web page is its beginning measures.) The MIDI sound file presents only a general representation of the piece. Duration: 5 minutes |
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| Piano | |||||
| Hudson River - Summer | solo piano
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Hudson River - Summer is the first movement of a projected four-movement suite inspired by the changing seasons. The MIDI sound file presents only a general representation of the piece. Duration: 4 minutes |
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| Mixed Ensembles | |||||
| Cronus: a time-romance | flute, French horn, contrabass, piano
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"Cronus" was inspired by a reading of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and his musings in that novel on how we perceive the passage of time. A slow outer frame surrounds a fast section that contains hints of jazz. The sound file (from a performance by Rhonda Cassano, flute, Michael Gast, horn, Richard Bell, contrabass, and Linda Ligate piano) contains all but the final section. Duration: 10 minutes |
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| Pastoral | oboe, viola, harp
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This is a gentle pastoral. The recording is by Kurt Studier, oboe, Jeffrey Showell, viola, and Emily Mitchell, harp. Note that there were a few changes made in the score after this performance. Duration 5 minutes |
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| Pastoral | flute, viola, and harp | This is an arrangement of the Pastoral above using flute instead of oboe, in a higher key and slightly edited. | |||
| Orchestra | |||||
| Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra | solo 'cello, 2:2,Ehn:2:2,cbn, 4:2:2:1, 4 perc (marimba, roto toms, side drum, bass drum, cymbals, timpani), hp, pn, strings | The concerto begins with an introduction in which the soloist and orchestra communicate in isolated gestures, but coalesce into a dramatic anacrusis that leads to the first statement of the theme. The movement coontinues in sonata form, erupting into a brass chorale for the coda. The quite second movement builds slowly on a single theme and leads directly to the final scherzo movement, which begins with the soloist and timpani alone. Duration: 20 minutes |
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| Winter Morning by a Lake | 1:1:2:1/2:1:1:0/strings | Inspired by the lake near my home in winter, the shifting instrumental colors reflect the effect of winter on the landscape. This is an arrangement and slight expansion of the similarly titled work for string quartet described above. The MIDI file here is only a vague approximation of the sound. Duration: 7 minutes |