Songs

Oh, Where is My Love? (1981) 

Text is a somewhat sappy poem I wrote while in high school, pining for a lost love who never, technically, existed.

Lullaby (1981)

The first of many attempts to emulate some of the great lullabies of Bach and Schubert.

Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind (1982) 

My setting of a text which had been set to music by a number of other composers.

Ave Maria (1981) 

The first of three (successful) settings of this text; the other two were choral pieces.

Ave Maria, Maiden Mild (1982)

Setting of the original English version of Sir Walter Scott's poem; the German translation was used by Schubert in his famous setting, Ave Maria, Jungfrau Mild

I Want You (1982)

Setting of a poem I had found in "Great Poems of the American People", expressing my unrequited love for a girl I knew in college.  I, of course, never told her how I felt.

If I had Known (1983)

Written for a composition assignment in college, the text was taken from the same book as the one above. I think it was a little more tonal than my instructor would have liked. 

God Be In My Head (1983)

This song was the result of an assignment to write a melody consisting of a subject, a retrograde, and inversion, and a retrograde inversion. I never got the completed piece back from my instructor, so I have tried to reconstruct the accompaniment from memory.

Thou Hast Wounded the Spirit that Loved Thee (1983)

Another text taken from "Great Poems", this one was supposed to be an end-of-the-semester composition assignment, but I didn't use it and ended up never finishing the class, dropping out of school soon afterwards.

Tarantula (1993)

A playful song that was suggested by my wife, who was thinking of a Gilbert and Sullivan tune where they kept singing "Tarantara".

Hymn of Creation (1993) 

A setting of a poem from C. G. Jung's "Symbols of Transformation", which was analyzed by Jung to describe the poet's mental illness.

Stand on the Mountain (1993) 

A setting of an excerpt from Isaiah, concluded with a prayer written by my wife.  This song was written for a fellow church choir member who was taking voice lessons. 

Rainbows in the Sky are True (1993) 

Setting of a poem by 9-year-old Katherine Grosvenor, who wrote it on the morning when a long drought was about to end. 

I Lift Up My Eyes  (1994) 

Setting of Psalm 120.

Jesu, Direct my Spirit (1994) 

Duet for two sopranos, set to my own text.

What Price Love?