People have asked me what it's like to be a father.  I wish I had the words to describe all the emotions fatherhood stirs.  If I could describe them, perhaps I would've been a poet or author.  Instead, I use sound.  Let me tell you about my son, Max.

Maxwell

Not long after receiving the commission for this Concertino, my wife and I discovered we were expecting our second child, Aaron.  This work was subsequently written during a period of great anticipation and a multitude of emotional states.  Though not programmatic, I cannot help but feel that the roller-coaster of emotions I felt influenced the writing of this piece.  To me, the work will always be the "Aaron" piece as its growth and creation was intimately connected with that of my son.  This work was commissioned by the University of Missouri - St. Louis Department of Music for Lisa Blackmore and the UMSL Wind Ensemble.

Concertino for Trumpet and Wind Ensemble ("Aaron")

Music and electronics by Daniel Eichenbaum.  Poetry by Elizabeth Savage.  Performed by Jenifer Weber, mezzo soprano.  Premiered at the West Fork New Music Festival, September 23, 2016 in Fairmont, WV.

If your boy leads

Nearer. . . was written in June 2009 as the inaugural commission by Quadrivium.  The word “nearer” takes a double meaning in this work.  It refers to the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee,” which forms the basis of the musical material, as well as the foiled attempts to perform an unadulterated version of the melody.  Performed by Quadrivium.

Nearer...

In 1977, the Voyager I and II spacecraft were launched on a mission to explore the outer planets of our solar system.  The launch trajectory was such that after their mission, the two spacecraft would end up in interstellar space.  Knowing these craft could potentially be found by an alien intelligence, Carl Sagan led a team of scientists, artists, and engineers to assemble a gold-plated record containing greetings, music, and sounds from the planet Earth that was then affixed to each of the Voyagers.

In my piece, I use quotes from Carl Sagan about the project along with his general ethos of hope and wonder for the project.  Along with Sagan’s quotes I use prime numbers, thought by astronomers to be the means of alien civilizations establishing contact with each other, and a chunk of a speech of greetings from President Jimmy Carter that is stored digitally on the Voyagers but separate from the record.  It also seemed appropriate to me that this endeavor cast its gaze towards the heavens and matched the spirit of Josquin des Prez’s Ave Maria, a prayer to the Virgin Mary.  Just as Josquin’s Virgin Mary’s ascent to the heavens was humanity’s “glorification,” so too, for Sagan, was the Voyager’s ascent into space.  The word “Mother” (“Mater” in Latin) takes on a double-meaning here.  Not only does it refer to the Virgin Mary but also to the term for a metal record master from which other records are created.  In the Voyager spacecraft, the metal “mother” was sent for issues of durability and these mothers (record and Virgin Mary) both serve to remember humanity into the distant future.

All electronic sounds are based upon samples from the Voyager golden records.

Texts: 
010 011 101 111	
-The first four prime numbers expressed in binary form: 2, 3, 5, 7

We cast this message into the cosmos… This is a present from a small and distant world.	
-Jimmy Carter, digitally stored speech onboard Voyager.

We all have a thirst for wonder.	
-Carl Sagan, Contact

This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe. 
-Jimmy Carter, digitally stored speech onboard Voyager.

Each Voyager is itself a message… these robots speak eloquently for us.	
-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

a golden phonograph…
It seemed ideal to send a mother to the stars.	
-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

cuius fuit assumption      [whose assumption has been]
nostra glorificatio.                             [our glorification]
O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.
                    [O Mother of God, remember me. Amen.]	
-Josquin des Prez, Ave Maria

Record

Jenifer Weber, mezzo soprano
John Morrison, piano

Several weeks before my father lost his battle with cancer, he wrote a list of four things he wished to accomplish with his remaining time.  My family did not discover this list until after his death and it is my hope that he felt he accomplished them before he succumbed.  This is what he wrote:

		Appreciate world + beauty
		Contribution to world
		Doing something with your own unique abilities
		Having a dignified, reasonable death

My Father's List

Pacific
by Daniel Eichenbaum
based upon the poem “Pacific” by Elizabeth Savage, Professor of English at Fairmont State University

Performed by the PEN Trio

Program Note:

Pacific incorporates the composer’s own field recordings of the Pacific ocean along with recorded narration of the poem.  Filtering and manipulation of the ocean sounds create the pitch, melodic lines, and harmonies of the fixed media part.  Much of the poem’s text is intentionally muffled and concealed in the fixed media part by the sound of the ocean.  Instead, the natural cadence and rhythms from the narrator create the rhythms from which the trio performs.  The poem, then, lives through the trio’s performance of these rhythms.

Pacific

Night begins chopping apart the next day, under
dressed, the will pressed, the end

of the line. Salt moves mountains, then 
splits waves godless as the green. All 

intention is arranged by the effort. The oysters 
taste of it, seasoned with hesitation

an ocean of refusal is what stood you 
here. Cut by wind 

reduced to reversals of light. Without 
a compass, no other place 

is in reach. Nowhere else is near 
but the wind, crowded with reflection

The glinting beach empties of struggle. Once
the fight readied your skin

Pacific

Performed live at the 2019 West Fork New Music Festival
Words and Music by Daniel Eichenbaum
Performed by the composer

Take my voice
when I am gone,
I leave behind
a part of me.

Take my voice,
I leave behind
the echoes of
a memory.

Take my voice

We never know how high we are
by Emily Dickinson
sung by the Fairmont State University Chamber Choir

We never know how high we are  
  Till we are called to rise;  
And then, if we are true to plan,  
  Our statures touch the skies—  
   
The Heroism we recite
  Would be a daily thing,  
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp  
  For fear to be a King—

We never know how high we are

This work was jointly commissioned by the West Virginia Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association in 2019 and was premiered on November 1, 2019 by John Morrison at Marshall University.

In June of 2019, I visited the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.  I was struck by the odd contrasts inherent to the observatory.  State-of-the-art radio telescope observation equipment is surrounded by rolling, green mountains and hiking trails inside a radio “quiet” zone.  Enormous radio telescopes pointed at the sky strain to detect the faintest radio waves from space.  The sounds of birds and frogs intermingle with mechanical coolant pumps and A/C compressors.  This was the aural impression and the basis of my piece.  Green Bank is of two worlds: earth and sky; nature and machine; gigantic equipment and tiny whispers.  And, behind it all, is the ever-present A/C compressor hum of the Jansky laboratory.  This piece is not a programmatic work but a response to the sound world of Green Bank. 
 
All fixed media source material was recorded onsite at the Green Bank Observatory.

I am indebted to Frank Ghigo, Mike Holstine, and the scientists and staff of the Green Bank Observatory for their assistance, guidance, and access to the equipment and facilities during my residency there.  Thank you for helping to make this piece possible.

Green Bank

Yuri Gagarin uniquely represents a nexus of space exploration and music.  Gagarin was the first person to orbit the Earth and broadcast a live musical performance from space.  While in orbit, Gagarin sang and broadcast the Shostakovich song "The Homeland Hears" (Rodina Slushit).  In my piece, I roughly paraphrase part of the Shostakovich melody.   The "clicks" in the electronic part are actual samples I recorded of switches and dials from an old Moog synthesizer.  The rest of the electronic part uses sine waves, square waves, and filtered noise in homage to the electronic music technology of the time period.

Performed live by Cheryl Melfi, clarinet.

Gagarin

This song goes out to all the ladies, the six-legged ones.

Red Ladybug

I write.  I teach.  I listen.  I play.  Sometimes these things even happen together.

Daniel Eichenbaum

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