Quality Over Opinion

Laughing in Her Sleep

Recorded by the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra on November 9, 2022; conducted by Alan Kay. Staller Center for the Arts, Stony Brook University. Soli Deo Gloria.

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Program Notes:

To plod is "to move or walk heavily or laboriously" or "to work or act perseveringly or monotonously." In any kind of art, it's tempting to wait until inspiration strikes before we get to work, but for most of us, this would mean that we accomplish little at all. Most days, we need to get up, keep our noses to the grindstone, and hope something happens that's worth keeping. This piece is a meditation on the commitment to plod along in whatever work we have in front of us. One step at a time, often a laborious step, is all we can do, but we must persevere in the pursuit of beauty.

Plod — for orchestra (2022)

Harrietlehre for Orchestra (Excerpt)

Some Unused Songs

End of The Night

Disappear Again

nothing

High Five

A Pill in the Sea

You Belonged

It All Passes

Time Machines (2025) Live Performance
Commissioned by the Bowling Green University Wind Symphony

Premiered on April 17, 2025 by the BGSU Wind Symphony
Dr. Kenneth Thompson, Conductor
© 2025 Harriet Steinke

Time Machines (Live April 2025 @ Bowling Green)

Dr. Brad Meyer, percussion

"clear and calm pools of tremendous depth" is a phrase I found in the park map of Yellowstone National Park describing the park’s signature hot springs. When visiting the springs, I was struck by the vivid turquoise color of the water and how deep these springs went down; seeing the surface triggered my imagination about what the channel looked deeper into the earth. This piece depicts submerging oneself into the clear blue spring and sinking down into the bottom, hundreds or thousands of feet down. Improvisatory percussion grooves and gestures integrate freely with samples from hot springs, boiling water, mysterious, unidentified deep ocean sounds, and other found sounds from the park.

Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHQl2Yn_x8Q

clear and calm pools of tremendous depth

Ben Morris is a composer whose music tells unconventional stories and crosses genre boundaries. He is Assistant Professor of Composition at Stephen F. Austin State University.