It Is Meet and Right in Truth : Song to the Blessed Virgin

The Best of Rooms

To Meet a Flower

Poet Emily Dickinson loved writing about nature and wrote many poems about flowers, three of which are celebrated in this song cycle. Flowers of vario...

It Was Not Death

What It Might Say

How It Thrills Us

For Flowers that Bloom Around Our Feet

Lord, You Have Been Our Dwelling Place

Messiah: How Beautiful are the Feet of Him

Three Spirituals: No. 1. I' Been in the Storm

Psalm 133 : How Wonderful It Is

How Far Is It To Bethlehem?

It Fell Upon the High Midnight

Istorum Est : To them hath been given the kingdom

How Good It Is to Sing Praises

Appalachian Carols: 4. Go Tell It on the Mountain

Three Songs of Isaiah: No. 1. Surely, it is God : Ecce, Deus

Two Carols on Early English Texts : Of a Rose: Nay, ivy, it may not be iwys

A Quiet Alleluia

This piece was composed for my close friend Walter Roach. He asked for a piece for his dear wife Debbie, who was in the last months of her life. I com...

And It Came to Pass : Canticle for Countertenor and Piano on Passages from the Gospel of Luke

Reverie Hommage a Francis Poulenc

Poignant, evocative, wistful, playful, charming. These are just a few of the many adjectives that recount Francis Poulenc's musical craft, and perhaps...

The Morning Train: 4. Worrisome Blues

This fourth and closing song of the set "The Morning Train" is perhaps the best known and most rousing of the set. The original title is "Worried Man ...

The War Prayer

This text has been adapted from Mark Twain's The War Prayer, which he wrote in 1904-5 to protest America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War. Hi...

The War Prayer

This text has been adapted from Mark Twain's The War Prayer, which he wrote in 1904-5 to protest America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War. Hi...

The War Prayer

This text has been adapted from Mark Twain's The War Prayer, which he wrote in 1904-5 to protest America’s involvement in the Spanish-American War. Hi...

The Mystery

Sara Teasdale’s poem, The Mystery, depicts deep lasting love - “Your eyes drink of me” and “We have long been lovers”. It also raises a question - “Ca...

The Mystery

Sara Teasdale’s poem, The Mystery, depicts deep lasting love - “Your eyes drink of me” and “We have long been lovers”. It also raises a question - “Ca...

Variations on Outburst of Spring Triumphant : A Theme of Ludwig Diehn

This work is built on a theme of the late Virginia composer, Ludwig Liehn. Commissioned for the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Regional Convention of the American ...

Mrs. Noah from Hotel Eden

Mrs. Noah is about middle-aged love. It centers around the relationship between Noah and his wife, Mrs. Noah, a name she hates being called. In this l...

The Snow Lay on the Ground

This original setting of an anonymous 19th-century text is written in verse-anthem style. The scoring for harp and keyboard makes it an ideal companio...

Jesu, We Do Worship You : Christe, adoramus te

This five part C major motet has a Latin text from the Antiphon from the Good Friday Liturgy. Notated on five staves, the soprano 1 and 2 parts have t...

Celtic Blessing : From Songs for the Journey

This final movement of the collection Songs for the Journey is set to the traditional blessing, "May the road rise up to meet you." Duration: 4:00

Light Upon the Water

Light Upon the Water was composed as part of a 2013 Composer Fellowship from The McKnight Foundation, a program administered by the American Composers...

The Snow Lay on the Ground

Released in 2007, this original setting of an anonymous 19th-century text is written in verse-anthem style. The scoring for chorus, harp, and keyboard...

The Snow Lay on the Ground

Released in 2007, this original setting of an anonymous 19th-century text is written in verse-anthem style. The scoring for chorus, harp, and keyboard...

Fond Farewell

On the occasion of retirement and relocation to another state, A Fond Farewell was written for a couple who had been longstanding members and strong s...

Nocturne from Shylock

Gabriel Fauré (1845 1924) composed his beautiful, brooding “Nocturne” from Shylock in 1889. Originally scored for string orchestra, it is deftly arran...

Three Pieces for Chanukah: No. 2 Maoz tzur

Published in 2003, Three Pieces for Chanukah is not so much a set of arrangements of familiar words and tunes than it is a set of original composition...

3 Pieces for Chanukah : No. 1 Oh, Chanukah/Y'mei hachanukah

Published in 2003, Three Pieces for Chanukah is not so much a set of arrangements of familiar words and tunes than it is a set of original composition...

Gwyneth Walker: Let The Life I've Lived Speak For Me (SSAA)

The traditional text with spiritual roots has been adapted by the composer. With an unadorned melody set in a simple but beautiful musical language wi...

Gwyneth Walker: Let The Life I've Lived Speak For Me (SATB)

The traditional text with spiritual roots has been adapted by the composer. With an unadorned melody set in a simple but beautiful musical language wi...

Gwyneth Walker: Let The Life I've Lived Speak For Me (TTBB)

The traditional text with spiritual roots has been adapted by the composer. With an unadorned melody set in a simple but beautiful musical language wi...

Mother to Son

Mother to Son is based on the powerful poem by Langston Hughes. The mother (voice) is a strong woman, one who has persevered and is still climbing, st...

Five Summer Songs on Poems of Emily Dickinson

The music in Perera's Five Summer Songs shows off both the singer's range and the pianist's ability. This version is handwritten, and the poems are by...

Standin' in the Need of Prayer from 3 Folk Hymns

Standin’ in the Need of Prayer is a lively tune in swing rhythm. New words are added within the lighthearted approach. It becomes evident during the s...

Reflections

Reflections was begun In the late 1990’s and finished around 2010. Despite the title, the piece is structured in one continuous movement. After a myst...

On Recollecting

These songs were commissioned by the Mohawk Trail Concerts in Charlemont, Massachusetts in honor of Ruth Lloyd Black, their co-founder. The first perf...

Erinnerung : Remembrance

An evocation of the sound world of Schubert's Sonatas, especially channeling Schubert’s D959. The references to Schubert are sometimes direct, but oft...

I Will Arise from Three Folk Hymns

I Will Arise comprises vocal lines which may be divided among the chorus according to voice range—with melody, harmony and descant designations. It mi...

Let Us Praise the Lord : Lasset uns den Herren preisen

A soaring, joyful, unaccompanied motet in F major. (Keyboard reduction provided.) Notated on five staves with the soprano 1 and 2 on their own staves....

Oh day of fire and sun

Sara Teasdale’s poem, Oh day of fire and sun, suggests a loud, fast musical setting. The syncopated homo-phonic choral texture, with high tessituras, ...

Oh day of fire and sun

Sara Teasdale’s poem, Oh day of fire and sun, suggests a loud, fast musical setting. The syncopated homo-phonic choral texture, with high tessituras, ...

Take My Hand

Take My Hand was composed as a gift for a friend of the composer. It is a setting for medium voice and piano based on a poem by Robert Bode that celeb...

Serenade and Dance

In one movement with two contrasting sections, the work opens with the Serenade, which is tranquil and melodic. It is followed by the energetically an...

From Starry Skies Descending

This Italian Christmas carol dates from 1732 and the lilting melody by Alfonso Liguori is associated with the zampogna, a large-format Italian bagpipe...

Pity the Beautiful

The poem to which this piece of music is set turns the concept of beauty on its head for about 4/5 of it. The remainder if the poem veers off in an en...

Be Thou My Vision: Homage to an Ancient Hymn

The beloved hymn Be Thou My Vision has long been part of our rich musical heritage of hymnody. The text is by St. Dallan Forgaill (6th Century Irish),...

Hommage à Langlais: Song of Peace in a Time of War

This engaging work by Mary Beth Bennett was commissioned by the Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Guild of Organists to celebrate its 50th ann...

American Death Ballads

American Death Ballads was composed especially for tenor Brian Thorsett. We have been frequent collaborators since 2011, when he premiered the complet...

American Death Ballads

American Death Ballads was composed especially for tenor Brian Thorsett. We have been frequent collaborators since 2011, when he premiered the complet...

The Morning Train: 3. Maid of Constant Sorrow

A familiar American folk song is "A Man of Constant Sorrow." Adaptations exist for a maid of constant sorrow as well. This is a very simple melody, pl...

The Angel with the Broken Wing

This poem by Dana Gioia is spoken by a santo, a devotional wooden statue carved by a Mexican folk artist. This anthropomorphized statue speaks of its ...

Black Pierrot

Commissioned by conductor Paul Crabb for the University of Missouri University Singers and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble (Stefan Freund, director) wit...

Jazzonia : From Black Pierrot

From the large work Black Pierrot, Jazzonia (1923) describes the scene in a Harlem café of the 1920s in which “six long-headed jazzers play,” and beau...

Three Impudent Arias

The texts for these songs are adapted from Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), one of America’s most fearless and biting satirists. It is safe to say that the...

i carry your heart

E. E. Cummings' poem i carry your heart could be read as a marriage vow, a joyous ode to a newborn, or even a eulogy to a lost love...it is adaptable ...

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

The text is Sir Walter Raleigh's response to The Passionate Shepherd by Christopher Marlowe. The two poems are worlds apart in philosophical viewpoint...

Fantasypiece

The duet version of Fantasypiece for violoncello and double bass was composed in 2001, an arrangement for chamber orchestra was completed in 2002. The...

The Gale

A creative and unusual work, The Gale uses text painting, sound effects, and crafty choral writing to bring to life the text written by Abraham (“Abra...

The Wind in the Willows

While studying at the American Academy in Rome from 1922 to 1925 on the first Damrosch Fellowship, Randall Thompson, fascinated with Kenneth Grahame’s...

Three Songs on Poems by Lorri Neilsen Glenn

Commissioned by the Canadian Art Song Project for soprano Magali Simard-Galdès, winner of the Jeunesses Musicales Maureen Forrester Tour. This song cy...

How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place

The text of How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place is taken from Psalm 84:1–4 (NIV). The piece is an attempt to portray the beauty of the heavenly place wh...

Three Settings of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash is often cited as our country’s best-known author of humorous poetry. His style emphasizes unconventional rhyming schemes and invented word...

Three Settings of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash is often cited as our country’s best-known author of humorous poetry. His style emphasizes unconventional rhyming schemes and invented word...

Fourteen Angels

The intertwining of friendship and the guitar engendered this composition. Christine and Jerry da Silva are close friends of Kurt Wolf, with whom Jerr...

Emily! : from New England Musical Settings of the Poems of Emily Dickinson

The poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is especially appealing due to the wide range of topics, diversity of mood and peculiar imagination of the p...

All Await

All Await was commissioned by Trinity Presbyterian Church, Berwyn, Pennsylvania, in celebration of the church’s 150th anniversary. It received its pre...

27 Haiku

Originally called hokku, the familiar 3-line verse began as the opening of a group improvisation called renga which evolved in Japan in the middle age...