Do you ever feel that the age of your soul doesn’t match with the age of your body? The title "Old Soul" came about in a conversation with flutist Lindsey Goodman where she described herself as an “old soul in a new body.” Initially, it was uttered in a musical context, referring to the conflict between the classic music that she loved to listen to and the avant-garde things that she loved to play. It was something that resonated with me as a composer who has frequently struggled with reconciling my desire to write “pretty music” with my desire to experiment with techniques more at home in the “new music” world.  I started thinking about the meaning of “old soul” and the alienation that one can feel when there seems to be a disconnect between our inner being and our outer lives. But then, is there really a problem, or are we just too “young” to put the pieces together? This piece celebrates reaching a certain age and realizing that the things you thought were conflicts and contradictions growing up have shaped you into your real self.

This performance: 
Lindsey Goodman, alto flute
World premiere at Ohio University-Athens, November 20, 2021

Old Soul for alto flute and electronics (2021)

“For Emerson, whose little toddler hands are full of energy in the day and filled with a sweet and innocent tenderness at night.”

Emerson’s Hands was commissioned in 2020 by Molly Wilkens-Reed for her son Emerson. The piece follows a trajectory familiar to many parents of young children. It starts with bursts of excitement and motion as a child plays and discovers his world. Eventually, all the activity begins to calm down, and an amazingly serene transformation takes place as his body prepares for sleep.

Commissioned and performed by:
Molly Wilkens-Reed, viola
Ian Yang, piano

Emerson's Hands for viola and piano (2021)

15 Years (on the Erie Canal) for trombone and fixed media
Tony Weikel, trombone

When trombonist Tony Weikel asked me to write him a piece, I thought about how we had both grown up in Western New York, and how I might celebrate that connection. I remembered learning “Low Bridge, Everybody Down” in music class, and riding a boat through the locks of the Erie Canal was standard field trip fare for the school kids of our region.

The Erie Canal began operation in 1825, almost 200 years ago. Though “Low Bridge” has the air of a folk tune that could have been sung by people who worked along the canal in its early days, it was written by Thomas Allen, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter. The song references the lift bridges that were constructed in the early 1900s. “Everybody Down” refers to the passengers riding on the top of boats who would have to get out of the way while going underneath a bridge. I found that the first recording of this song was made by Billy Murray in 1912 and that it had recently entered the public domain. Thus, the recording became a character in the piece, adding a note of nostalgia.

The piece opens with the trombone giving three “horn blasts” on a low F. Three horn blasts signaled to lift bridge operators that a boat was approaching, so that they could shut down traffic across the bridge and ring bells as they moved the bridge up and down for the boat to pass through. Throughout the piece, you will hear sequences of three horn blasts and various lift bridge bells recorded along the Canal. The rest of the electronic sounds come from recorded, processed, or sampled trombone. I imagined the music as an echo of bygone days along the 363-mile stretch of the Canal, evoking both the clamor of the cities and the tranquility of the spots in between.

15 Years (on the Erie Canal) was commissioned by Tony Weikel and completed in February 2023.

15 Years (on the Erie Canal) for trombone and fixed media (2023)

Les Crapauds de La Fontaine (The Toads from the Fountain)
for bass clarinet and electronic sounds
Andrea Cheeseman, bass clarinet
November 2015, Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival

In the summer of 2008, I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia in a development called La Fontaine. On the surface, it looked like a quiet, quaint community with a fountain in the middle of a pond. But that summer was not quiet. When the sun went down, the sounds of the creatures outside were astonishingly clamorous, making themselves known even inside the sealed air-conditioned apartments. One evening, I went out to investigate. I found that the frogs and toads were having quite the party! (Later, armed with a guide from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, I identified them as Fowler’s Toad, Green Treefrog, and Cope’s Gray Treefrog.) As I wandered along the grass, I heard snippets of melodies and polyrhythms that could serve as the accompaniment to a human dance party. 

Les Crapauds de la Fontaine was commissioned by the Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival in Fall 2015. Many thanks go to Benjamin Broening, Andrea Cheeseman, and Andrew Kovaleski for their assistance in bringing the piece to life.

This performance: Andrew Kovaleski, bass clarinet

Les Crapauds de La Fontaine (The Toads from the Fountain) for bass clarinet and electronics (2015)

The title The Best of Both Worlds came to me while I was thinking about the genesis of the opening motive—a falling tritone followed by a rising perfect fifth—which figures prominently in the piece. I was minding my own business at the dining room table when I happened to hear a sequence of four notes plucked on my children’s out-of-tune ukulele that compelled me to write them down.  I thought about the way that my home life as a wife and mother interacts with my work life as a composer and professor. Some days, I think I have the best of both worlds. Some days, I think I have the best of neither of those worlds, as I frantically run from one thing to the next, wondering if I do any of it well. Many people have similar different worlds that they inhabit, and there are many pairs of worlds in this piece. The slow, lyrical first section clashes with the bluesy, aggressive nature of the second section. The scales used share similar collections of notes, but change color when the emphasized tonic shifts. These conflicts play out in different ways as the piece progresses, reaching a cautious resolution by the end. It was a pleasure for me to write this piece for the two instruments whose worlds I inhabited during my musical training. Many thanks go to the Ohio Music Teachers Association, who commissioned the piece for their 2017 conference, to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the place where I could escape from one world into another to complete the work, and to Steve Wedell and Suzanne Newcomb, who gave the premiere performance.

This performance:
October 29, 2017 
Steve Wedell, viola
Suzanne Newcomb, piano
Otterbein University
Westerville, OH

Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz, OM

The Best of Both Worlds for viola and piano (2017)

Phantasy (n): a term used in the theory of psychoanalysis to describe unconscious desires, fears, drives, etc.  
Eu-.  Indicates: Well, pleasant, or beneficial, from the Greek eus; for example, euphonium = eu (good) + phonos (sound).
Euphantasy (n): a musical piece that explores unconscious desires, fears, and drives with the aid of live euphonium and computer-processed sounds.

Euphantasy was commissioned by Lloyd Bone and was premiered by Hiram Diaz in January 2006.  The electronic sounds were derived exclusively from the euphonium itself and were processed primarily with the composer’s granular sampling software, Amber.

This recording: Hiram Diaz, euphonium

Euphantasy for euphonium and electronics (2005/2025)

Mass of Joyful Hope, composed in 2004
performed at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

Mass of Joyful Hope: Memorial Acclamations

Mass of Joyful Hope: Sanctus

Mass of Joyful Hope: General Intercessions

Mass of Joyful Hope: Alleluia

Mass of Joyful Hope: Gloria

Mass of Joyful Hope: Kyrie

(the sunflowers and wine) was originally a collaboration between three faculty at Interlochen Arts Camp: Shellie Cash, choreographer; Janée Baugher, poet; and myself, composer.  The title refers to the second of three Baugher poems that Cash chose to choreograph.  I composed music for percussion to accompany the already-completed choreography and poetry reading.  As such, the music is conceived as gestures and patterns that matched the choreography and commented upon the text. (the sunflowers and wine) was originally performed by the Interlochen Summer Dance Ensemble in August 2005, and was later modified for a trio of dancers in January 2006. This version was commissioned by Joseph Van Hassel and the University of North Carolina-Pembroke Percussion Ensemble. It may be performed with or without choreography.

This performance: 
Otterbein University Percussion Ensemble
Mike Yonchak, director
Kristin Gustafson, reader
Matt Cross, Mary Day, Garrett Lind, and MK Schloss, percussion
Wednesday, April 3, 2019

(the sunflowers and wine)

The text of this song is simple: “I am far, far from home, and I cannot return. Is it safe here?” The words weave in and out of four languages (English, Spanish, Indonesian, and Arabic) to communicate the shared plight of refugees across the globe. Musically, the main melody strives to find “home,” which proves elusive.

Daniel Neer, baritone
Camarata Trio: Ariane Sletner, violin; Luis Biava, cello; Suzanne Newcomb, piano

jennymerkowitz

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