WORKS FOR VOICE
I have been fortunate to collaborate with many fantastic singers over the years, creating works ranging from traditional song cycles and vocal chamber music to experimental theatrical curiosities. Some of these works are truly interdisciplinary, integrating dance or other elements.
Urtext, for voices and cello (2025–2026)
For two sopranos, mezzo-soprano, speaker, cello, and three dancers, Urtext is an evening-length interdisciplinary stage work that uncovers the darkness embedded within Western philosophy. Using three utopian texts—some of the most aspriational and optimistic writings to be found—we gradually peel away the idealistic veneer to find that fear, oppression, and violence are foundational to even the most high-minded plans for a perfect society. With texts by Plato (in Greek), Thomas More (in Latin), and H. G. Wells (in English), it was commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts, sponsored by Alison Cook Beatty Dance.
This work is not yet available for purchase, pending its full premiere. A suite will be made available for concert performances.
12 December 2024, for mezzo-soprano and piano (2025)
A collaboration with mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis, this 3-minute song is a setting for voice and piano of one of Sophie’s diary entries during her time undergoing chemotherapy. The score is not yet available for purchase and may form the basis of a short song cycle in the near future.
Res cogitans, for mezzo soprano and drone (2024)
To Take You There, for soprano, cello, and dancer (2021)
A setting of Andrea Cohen’s long(ish) poem Live Girls, this work for soprano and cello can be tailored for different performance situations. In its full realization it is a stage work to include a dancer who (occasionally and optionally) sings as well, with both soprano and dancer choreographed in the space. However, it is easily adapted to smaller spaces and concert settings, with a few general blocking indications in the score. It was first realized by choreographer Alia Kache with Periapsis Music and Dance. The soprano part is theatrical and requires a wide range; the cello part is quite virtuosic.
From Century to Century, for solo soprano (2021)
From Century to Century takes the simple idea of combining primary source texts about the 1893 World’s Fair—guidebooks, period ads, an overzealous lecture—into a garbled recitation by a malfunctioning animatronic robot. The entire 20-minute work is a lot for one solo soprano, though it’s written as such, so the premiere was split between four. Whether excerpted, performed in full, and/or staged, it offers unique technical, musical, and mental challenges for the soprano as singer, actor, and automaton.
A Scenario in My Head, for solo soprano (2020)
Early during the pandemic, when very little “official” work could happen, was a time conducive to realizing whatever strange ideas popped into my head. For this one, I set thirty tweets by the comedic writer Danielle Weisberg for soprano Zen Wu. I felt (correctly) that Zen would be an ideal channel for the particular type of neurotic chaos that Danielle projected, and the result was this series of miniatures, some only a few seconds long. Alternately dry, giddy, despairing, sarcastic, narrative, caustic, and self-deprecating, they can be excerpted and reordered to fit a variety of occasions and durations (and vocal ranges). The full set is about 12 minutes long.
Around the Idea of You, for soprano and cello (2020)
Part of a return to writing vocal music that arrived just in time for the pandemic, Around the Idea of You was one of three song cycles I wrote in early 2020. The only one with cello, rather than piano, it took over five years for a premiere to finally happen. It sets five poems by Andrea Cohen (whose work I also set in As If Saying Goodbye and To Take You There), all quite short, but some only a handful of words. The whole cycle comes to 7-8 minutes and requires a strong ensemble between the two performers.
The Water Around Our Lives, for tenor (or baritone) and piano (2020)
Part of a series of song cycles I wrote in 2020, this one set three stream-of-consciousness poems by Ben Purkert for tenor Nils Neubert (with a subsequent version for baritone) for a virtual premiere during the pandemic. The first song is slow and meditative with a more animated and chaotic middle section. The second begins even more languidly but moves into a quasi-prayer section with an enormous build (whose extended tremolos can be taxing on the pianists arms, and extended high notes on the tenor’s lungs!). The third song begins as a mildly satirical waltz before wandering into outer space and dissolving into water (in that order). About 8.5 minutes in total.
As If Saying Goodbye, for mezzo-soprano (or soprano) and piano (2020)
This was the first of a series of vocal works I wrote in a flurry in 2020 and 2021 after not having explored the genre in several years. It was also my first of three (so far) settings of poems by Andrea Cohen and includes “The Committee Weighs In,” likely her most famous poem (it circulates periodically on social media, which is where I first encountered it). Each song in the cycle of five explores loss in some way, from loss of innocence to loss of a loved one, and the cycle overall is lyrical and character-driven. I wrote the work for mezzo-soprano Emily Hughes and later created a soprano version. The whole set is around 9 minutes long.
Advice to Young Musicians, for tenor, viola, and accordion (2012)
A student work and probably mostly a curiosity now, this is a setting of nine aphorisms in five minutes from Robert Schumann’s Advice to Young Musicians (Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln). Humorous if you speak German, but tricky to pull off. For a high tenor.
Meacham Songs and The End, for soprano and piano (2012)
The last of my “early” song cycles, this challenging work sets poems by a friend of mine, Molly Meacham, who is a public school teacher in Chicago and a published poet. Technically, Meacham Songs consists of three songs and The End is an optional fourth that significantly darkens the overall effect of the cycle when included (and lengthens the set from about 12 to about 15 minutes). The first three songs (especially “Advice to My Father from Harry Houdini,” the third) have a sardonic edge and a bit of emotional distance, but The End is thoroughly bleak and is also set lower for the voice than the others. Like most of my music from this period, the piano part turned out difficult enough that I was kicking myself when I had to actually learn it, and the vocal part requires a fluid technique and a sharp ear. (I wrote it for Mary Mackenzie, who has both.)
Talking of Michelangelo, for tenor and piano (2009)
Against the advice I would have given now, I wrote this 21-minute song cycle for a competition in a mad dash over about six weeks. But I won the competition, and I still think it’s one of my best works despite a few things I would have done differently with more experience. As the title suggests to those who know it, it sets the iconic T.S. Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and creates an epic, anti-hero’s journey for the tenor. (It also includes two shorter Eliot poems as prologues.) I wrote it for Chris Lysack, and it’s best suited to a heldentenor’s range and color. Extremely challenging for both performers, but it’s quite a ride.
Chalices from My Hands, for baritone and piano (2008)
This was effectively my Op. 1, my return to composing at 29 after about a 12-year break (I may have started some of the Trichord Preludes first, but this was finished before they were). As such, it has the fire of that pent-up creative energy finally being released, even if it makes some rookie mistakes. Its five songs (over 13 minutes) alternate between poems by Abba Kovner (in English) and excerpts from Joyce’s Ulysses, and I think it still packs a punch. Unlike all of my subsequent vocal music, which was written for specific people, I wrote this for an abstract baritone, and my friend Jonathan Green stepped in and realized it beautifully in its early performances.