Growing up on an island meant that the sea was never far away, and it figured heavily into my early life. Aquatic Pastorale combines my personal memories with the sights, sounds, and colors of the ocean to create a musical impression of the ocean. The piece is divided into four sections, starting with Introduction – The Depths, contrasting the darkness of the deep ocean with the crashing of giant waves. Bayberry, named for a plant native to my home’s shores, presents the shoreline as I remember it: a place of roaring waves, crying gulls, bracing winds, warm sand, and idyllic days spent there. The third section, Whale and Calf, offers a pastoral scene of a mother whale and her calf swimming and playing in the ocean, much like a terrestrial pastorale may present other mother-and-child scenes. The final section, titled Lights Above and Below, connects the deep sea and the night sky through the common element of light: the light of bioluminescent organisms in the depths, and the shimmering lights of stars reflected on the surface of the ocean. These elements combine to create a portrait of the ocean as I remember it – deep, mysterious, powerful, and wonderful all at once.

Compositions

Aquatic Pastorale

Live recording, 5/5/19, Rosch Recital Hall, SUNY at Fredonia.

Duo for Saxophones, II.

Duo for Saxophones, I.

Three Events for Percussion, III. Relay

Three Events for Percussion, II. Aria

Three Events for Percussion, I. Dictum

Slow Burn

Scherzo

Joe Dan Harper, tenor
Dr. Anne Kissel, piano

Winner of the ETHOS New Music Society Composition Competition 2018

"Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus" (An Litir Chun Corotícus) is a setting of an excerpt from the Epistle of Saint Patrick (fl. 5th Century CE). Written in response to the murder and enslavement of Irish Christians by the Scottish king Ceretic Guletic, the Letter is a scathing condemnation of the actions of the warlord and his soldiers. 
The piece itself uses recitative- and aria-esque sections to deliver the passionate message of St. Patrick in the Irish language, a modern version of the language spoken by the Irish long ago. The piano supports the delivery of this message with sweeping musical lines, dense harmonies, and cacophonous, bell- and pipe-like sounds throughout the piece.

Letter to the Soldiers of Choroticus

Ethan Fields, F Horn
Noah Turner, Piano
John Tocco, guitar

Stargazers, for horn, electric guitar, and piano, is a meditation on humanity's relationship to the stars, perhaps best summarized by Robert Frost's poem Choose Something Like a Star": "Say something to us we can learn/By heart and when alone repeat./Say something! And it says "I burn."/But say with what degree of heat./Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade./Use language we can comprehend./Tell us what elements you blend./It gives us strangely little aid,/But does tell something in the end."

Ethan Fields' Senior Horn Recital

Stargazers

This arrangement of K.K. Cruisin' from Nintendo's Animal Crossing video game series was performed by an amazing international group of musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their incredible talent made this project so much fun to work on and even better to listen to. Special thanks to all those involved in the creation of this track!

Animal Crossing © Nintendo.

EthanFields

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