A Wagtail Dance: Eight Bee Poems – song cycle for soprano and piano
A Wagtail Dance – When bees return to the hive, they need to communicate the location of suitable flowers, such as clover, to the other members of the hive. This is done by means of a wagtail…
Visions of Eternity – song cycle for soprano and piano
Visions of Eternity – Emily Dickinson wrote many poems that contemplate faith and the meaning of death. The six songs in this cycle present a variety of answers to that contemplation. In “The Doomed — regard the…
Sonnets from the Portuguese – song cycle for soprano, oboe and piano
Sonnets from the Portuguese – The five songs in this cycle tell the story of Elizabeth Barrett’s unlikely courtship by the more accomplished and worldly poet, Robert Browning. It begins with “Unlike are we,” a sonnet that describes…
Quem Genuit Maria – Christmas song cycle for soprano and string quartet
Quem Genuit Maria – This is a tribute to the Renaissance composers Palestrina and Victoria using Latin Christmas texts. The four settings are for soprano and string quartet. “Resonet in laudibus” is a song of praise for the…
Passages – song cycle for soprano and piano
Passages – The four songs in this cycle reflect various stages of life – the confidence of the young adult, the fear of the very young when confronted with nature’s violence, the love of a mother for…
Love’s Shades of Gray – song cycle for soprano and piano
Love’s Shades of Gray – The five poems in Love’s Shades of Gray were first published in a collection of poems by Rob Smith entitled Two-Hundred Fifty-Six Zones of Gray (Bird Dog Publishing, 2008). I was impressed…
Emily in Love…Emily Alone – song cycle for soprano and piano
Emily in Love…Emily Alone – The six songs in this cycle tell the story of Emily Dickinson’s struggles to find a partner in life. We never know his name, only the story of their brief time together and…
Bee! I’m Expecting You! – soprano or tenor and piano
This song forms the opening of the song cycle, A Wagtail Dance. It is a letter to an old friend. The cycle gets its name from the behavior of bees. When bees return to the hive, they…
Gather Ye Rosebuds – tenor or baritone and piano
“Gather Ye Rosebuds” is the final song in the cycle, Men in Love. The song, to the poem by Robert Herrick, warns men to find love when they are young. However, Men in Love is a song…
It’s All I Have to Bring Today – for mezzo-soprano, clarinet and piano
This is the first song from the song cycle All I Have to Bring Today for mezzo-soprano, clarinet and piano (Emily Dickinson). This cycle is about unrequited love and lasting hope. The first song, “It’s all I…