Program Note:

Three Sea Chanteys began as only a pair—Bantry Bay and The Sea Ritual. They were composed in Evian, France while I was serving as an auxiliary percussionist for the Curtis Institute’s Orchestra, in residence there for that year’s music festival. Bantry Bay was finished on May 3rd, 1983; The Sea Ritual was completed on May 9th. They were composed for tenor Michael Carrigan, serving then as the Registrar of the Curtis Institute, and Martha Halbwachs Massena, the famed vocal coach and pianist who served for 57 years on the faculty of the Curtis and was at the time on the verge of retiring. I completed the set with In Love With the Sea, a song for which I had contributed both music and words, written for my brother Kevin, completed on January 18th, 1980 and premiered by him, accompanied by me, on January 26th at Morphy Recital Hall, in Madison, Wisconsin. The complete set of three songs was premiered in Pennington, New Jersey on a private concert by Martha Massena and Michael Carrigan at the salon of Olga Gorelli in August 1983.