WORKS
Information about the works I have composed is listed below.
Great Moments in Human History
This is a chamber opera calling for a cast of five singers, no chorus and a chamber orchestra, consisting of strings and five winds (fl, ob, cl, bsn, hn).
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This piece is an opera buffa, or at least I hope the audience finds some wit in it. It is approximately 30 minutes long.
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The libretto is in English.
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This setting of this one act opera is contemporary, four singers coming to a first meeting with the conductor of a small opera company. The plot involves the surprise and reaction of the singers to the subject of the opera.
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The five singers called for are one coloratura soprano, one mezzo, one tenor, one baritone and one female voice for either a soprano or mezzo.
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The staging requirements of this opera are modest. Everything takes place in a single room, a waiting room, with a door on each side of the room. There is no chorus, no particular staging except for that of a waiting room and no particular costumes are required.
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As to the orchestra, this work could be successfully performed with as little as 14 instrumentalists.
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The full score, a piano-vocal score and parts are available. A virtual recording, from which one can get a very clear idea of the work with the chamber orchestra, is available. A video of the full work at a recent performance is available on the Listen/Watch page of this website. This performance was done with two pianos which, to me, sounded very good.
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One aria from this opera, People Say to Me, is suitable as a stand-alone art song. A recording of this aria sung by Jose Luis Maldonado, the baritone who created the role, is also available on the Listen/Watch page of this website. The score and piano part for this aria are available.
When I too Long
This is an art song based on a poem of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
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This song is the first composed of a projected song cycle of five art songs, all based on the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
This work was composed for voice, soprano or mezzo, and strings. A slightly different version is for voice and piano.
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This work has never been performed. However I do have a sound representation of both versions via Sibelius. These can be heard on the Watch/Listen page and give a quite good idea of the works.
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Vivace for Strings
This is a work for string orchestra, five minutes in length.
This work has been performed several times by small orchestras in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Kyiv, Ukraine.
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This work received a distinguished performance by the Gotham Chamber Orchestra conducted by Dorothy Savitch in 1996.
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A recording of this work can be heard on the Listen/Watch page
Brass Quintet arrangements
One arrangement is of the Passacaglia in D minor by Dietrich Buxtehude, a beautiful unfolding piece of music. My feeling in making this arrangement was that only a brass quintet can capture the power and brilliance of the organ while giving this lovely work a fresh sound. This work is six minutes long.
The second is an arrangement of the ravishingly beautiful aria, Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix, from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saens. This aria is for a mezzo and I gave the solo to the tuba with the feeling that the lovely and mellow tone of which the tuba is capable could capture the emotional tone of this aria. This work is four minutes long.
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Virtual recordings, which sound good to me, of both of these arrangements can be heard on the Listen/Watch page.