Choral

tautology n. [Gk tauto the same + logy word] 1 The contextual repetition, originally of the same word or phrase, now usually of the same idea or statement in different words, especially as a fault of style. M16. 2 An instance of this; a tautological phrase or expression. L16. 3 Philosophy. The absolute identification of cause and effect; an expression of this. rare. M17. 4 Logic. A compound proposition which is unconditionally true for all the truth-possibilities of its component propositions and by virtue of its logical form. E20. b A proposition that is true by virtue of the meaning of its terms. M20. — Oxford English Dictionary
tautology n. [Eng colloq tot a small child + Gk logy word] 1 Of or pertaining to the lexicon of a small child, especially before the inception of articulate speech. E21.
Tautology was composed between July and December, 2003, for Volti as a part of their Choral Arts Laboratory. In this work, I set out to explore pure sound without regard to word or meaning, and my approach was inspired by the development of speech in my son Benjamin over the first year of his life. Every sound in the piece was made by him during this formative period, though I have taken the liberty to assemble the sounds into a musical structure. In a sense, I set out to recapitulate the universal exploration of sound that each of us undertakes and to translate this into music, which is often understood to derive from this very pre-articulate phase of development. Repetition (as per the official definition of tautology) is one of the primary means of this exploration and figures prominently in the piece.

Ferry Bluff was composed during March and April, 1999 and is a setting of a poem by Virginia poet Thomas Gardner. The poem describes an autumn day in Wisconsin when the poet, standing on a sandstone bluff above a river, loses his sense of self. The music attempts both to capture the atmospheric sense of the text and to portray many of the specific images. Below is the poet’s response to hearing my setting of his poem:

“Ferry Bluff is really lovely. You’ve taken some very simple words and almost transformed them to wind and water, to elements. Mostly I found myself thinking of contrasts–the liquid layers of sound, voices dropping down through veils of them, in contrast to solid things and bursts of clarity; the play between the temporarily stable “I” and the dissolving, shifting world outside; and so on. It’s a “contest” or debate or negotiation I think about (teach about) all the time, so I’m not surprised to find it in this poem, but how much richer it seems put in musical terms.”

“But what after all is one night?” is a setting of a passage from the “time passes” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

Passing was commissioned by Voci Women’s Chorus to honor one of their founding members who was terminally ill with cancer. She selected both me as the composer and the text: the final section of Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. The work is both haunting and ecstatic over its 11-minute course, beginning and ending somberly, but digressing into moments of passion and austerity as befits this iconic poem.

On a Mountain Path was composed in the fall and winter of 2008-2009 for Voci Chamber Chorus. The inspiration for the piece came from the theme of the concert it was composed for: mountains and rivers with an East-meets-West subtheme. As I contemplated how I might realize this theme, I was immediately drawn to the idea of setting haiku. I have always been attracted to the simplicity and austerity of the form, and the wonderful invention it has inspired. I settled on five texts by Basho that all feature mountains. “Natsu kodachi” centers around a pun on the word for summer grove and short sword, describing the mountain in martial terms. “Sumiregusa” describes the charm of finding a violet on a mountain path. “Hibari yori” depicts a skylark suspended in the sky over the mountain. “Kiri shigure” reflects on the attractiveness of Mount Fuji being enhanced by its being obscured by a mist shower. “Tsuki no tomo” is the only poem that does not directly reference a mountain. It refers to a legend about Mount Obasute in which a man is persuaded by his wife to follow the old custom of abandoning his old aunt on the mountain. But the full moon rising above the mountain makes him feel so much remorse that the next morning he climbed the mountain to bring her back.