Program Note:   

Desert is an awakening, a musical depiction of one person’s dark night of a soul. Musically, it is a chaconne (a series of repeated chords) that "flash before one's ears" as the memories of moments from a life might "flash before one's eyes."

Intensive Care is a purification that occurs in either a spiritual or physical I.C.U. The music examines four recurring musical ideas as one might observe the elements in a Calder mobile as it spins. The elements are an ostinato based on the “S-O-S” Morse Code rhythm, the intermittent beeping of a heart-monitor, a scrap of half-remembered hymn, and shreds of distant trumpet calls.

Ghost Trumpeter is a backward look, a recollection played out in the strophic song-setting of a poem by JoAnn Falletta in which the coming of age of a young trumpet player is recalled and memorialized.

Susurrus is a zephyr of illumination. A second chaconne based on the first movement’s chords unfolds like successive waves of insight.

Interrupted Dream features lines of poetry by Falletta concerning apotheosis and transfiguration. Fragments of musical ideas from the previous movements return, half-remembered Lutheran hymns from childhood, a gently splendid elegia, and a dignified, unsentimental coda by way of farewell.

Symphony No. 5 was commissioned by the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and premiered at the Phoenix Center for the Arts by the Phoenix Symphony, Victoria Vargas, soprano, conducted by Michael Christie, on October 9, 2015.

To read a piece about the symphony that I wrote for the Huffington Post, please click here.