Recorded by St. Martin's Chamber Choir, Denver, CO.
Poetry by Gabriela Mistral.

Meciendo - for SSAATTBB choir

For double SATB choir and piano
Performed by the Combined Choirs of the Lamont School of Music, 
University of Denver
Catherine Sailer, musical director

Text:
All shall be Amen and Alleluia.
We shall rest and we shall see.
We shall see and we shall know.
We shall know and we shall love.
We shall love and we shall praise.
Behold our end which is no end.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)�

03-03-2016

Amen and Alleluia

"Danse Orphique" for String Quartet was written during Boston Conservatory at Berklee's HSCI 2020 under the guidance of Mischa Salkind-Pearl. The piece was performed by the Julius Quartet https://www.thejuliusquartet.com/

Program Notes:
The french word “orphique” translates to the english word “orphic”, meaning ‘mysterious and entrancing; beyond ordinary understanding’. The word also originated from the greek myth of Orpheus, a legendary musician, prophet, and poet, gifted by Apollo himself - “his music had the ability to make the animals and trees dance”. While writing this piece I was heavily inspired by my favorite String Quartets from the likes of Korngold, Debussy, Ravel, and Borodin.

Danse Orphique for String Quartet

Negation (2021) for unaccompanied soprano
Ahava Noham Katzin, soprano

Text by Wallace Stevens (public domain):
Hi! The creator too is blind,
Struggling toward his harmonious whole,
Rejecting intermediate parts,
Horrors and falsities and wrongs;
Incapable master of all force,
Too vague idealist, overwhelmed
By an afflatus that persists.
For this, then, we endure brief lives,
The evanescent symmetries
From that meticulous potter's thumb.

Program note:
As I began to think about a piece for unaccompanied soprano, I thought it would be interesting, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, to observe how artists’ work were affected by the last pandemic of a similar scale to the one we are going through right now: the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. This led me to American poet Wallace Stevens’ Negation, which was published (not coincidentally) in 1918. To me, it is very hard to believe that this poem, full of negativity and cynicism, was not influenced at all by the tragic events of the influenza outbreak. Either way, though, it is a chilling work that I feel becomes even more emotionally charged during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Negation was written for the 2021 Sewanee WinterFest, and was created in close collaboration with Ahava Katzin.

Website: www.jonahcohenmusic.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzKClzse63pKglhORfp3QHQ
Instagram: @jonahcohen.music

For inquiries about this piece, please contact me through my website: https://www.jonahcohenmusic.com/contact.

Copyright Jonah Cohen 2021. All rights reserved.

Negation

Luca Pasquini (b. 2004) is an composer/pianist from Denver, Colorado based in NYC.

Danse Orphique for String Quartet

Luca Pasquini

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