This piece—for clarinet and string quartet—celebrates the constant flow of water into creek, river, and sea.  It was first performed on the deck of the Nature Center at Shelby Bottoms, Nashville, Tennessee, overlooking the great Cumberland River.   The performance here is by clarinetist Mariam Adam and the Blair String Quartet.

Watershed (Clarinet Quintet)

Viola Sonata No. 3 (2004)
Maria Lambros, viola
Craig Nies, piano

Michael Alec Rose, Pedagogy Of Grief

The finale of a four-movement piano quintet (A GRAMMAR OF HOPE), all the movements titled with Hebrew nouns of the same intensive grammatical construction: Gilgul (Change), Tillul (Dewfall), Hillul (Praise), and this one.  This is the premiere performance in 2003 by Craig Nies and the Blair Quartet.

A Grammar Of Hope  IV. Tiltul/Tziltzul (Wandering/Music)

The second movement of Four Seasons for Two Violins, performed by Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Mihailo Trandafilovski. The CD recording engineer mistook a silence near the end of the movement for the actual end; so please listen to the third movement (III. Fall) next if you can, just so you can hear the real ending of Summer, which then continues right into the start of Fall. At least all of this is meteorologically correct!  

Everything Under The Sun, II. Summer

Naumburg Foundation commission (1985), first movement; performed by the Meliora Quartet

String Quartet No. 2, I

The first of a four-movement piano quintet (A GRAMMAR OF HOPE), all the movements titled with Hebrew nouns of the same intensive grammatical construction: this one, Tillul (Dewfall), Hillul (Praise) and Tiltul/Tziltzul (Wandering/Music). This is the premiere performance in 2003 by Craig Nies and the Blair Quartet.

A Grammar of Hope: I. Gilgul (Change)

The second of a four-movement piano quintet (A GRAMMAR OF HOPE), all the movements titled with Hebrew nouns of the same intensive grammatical construction: Gilgul (Change), this one, Hillul (Praise), and Tiltul/Tziltzul (Wandering/Music). This is the premiere performance in 2003 by Craig Nies and the Blair Quartet.

A Grammar of Hope: II. Tillul (Dewfall)

The third of a four-movement piano quintet (A GRAMMAR OF HOPE), all the movements titled with Hebrew nouns of the same intensive grammatical construction: Gilgul (Change), Tillul (Dewfall), this one, and Tiltul/Tziltzul (Wandering/Music). This is the premiere performance in 2003 by Craig Nies and the Blair Quartet.

A Grammar of Hope: III. Hillul (Praise)**

The second movement of my concerto for the great Klezmer band, Brave Old World, commissioned by Maestro Paul Gambill for the Nashville Chamber Orchestra's Festival of Jewish Music, 2007. This is the premiere performance at Nashville's Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

Arguing With God (Klezmer Concerto), II. A Glasse of Blessings

My ballet based on Tennessee Williams' great play, choreographed by Paul Vasterling, Artistic Director of Nashville Ballet and produced twice by that company in 2002-2

Night of the Iguana

The first movement of my Violin Concerto for Peter Sheppard Skaerved (2006).  I feel sure it is one of the strangest things I've ever done, not least because it takes inspiration from my great London violinist Peter, all his fearless and various reinventions of the pastoral mode in the 21st century.

Pastoral Concerto

Pastoral Concerto:  I. Wandering

The second movement of my Violin Concerto for Peter Sheppard Skaerved (2006). I feel sure this piece is one of the strangest things I've ever done, not least because it takes inspiration from my great London violinist Peter, all his fearless and various reinventions of the pastoral mode in the 21st century.

Pastoral Concerto:  II. Idyll

My 1985 cycle of five songs for tenor and piano.  This performance was given at "News of the Universe: A Michael Alec Rose Retrospective," by tenor Tony Boutté and pianist Margaret Kampmeier, at Opera America/National Opera Center in New York City.  Especially moving for me is Tony and Peggy's interpretation of my setting of the Mary Oliver poem, "Sleeping in the Forest" (@7:25), performed here 30 years after the two of them premiered this cycle at the Eastman School.  Back then, I was the first composer to ask and receive Ms. Oliver's permission to set her work to music.  I'm thinking of putting what she said to me (when I finally met her a few years ago) on my tombstone: "You still doing that?  Composing? You know, you're the only one I ever liked."  I was so flabbergasted I didn't know what to say.  I won't tell you what foolish and inarticulate thing I said.  To be painfully evenhanded, it too should go on my tombstone.

Music of Michael Alec Rose

News of the Universe

The final movement of my Dartmoor cycle for Peter Sheppard Skaerved, when the always changing beauty and fragility of the landscape come down to the one singing about it.

Song (Part VI of IL RITORNO: PERAMBULATION FOR SOLO VIOLIN

My 1997 overture for symphony orchestra, inspired by the ghost story of the same name by Walter de la Mare.  At one point, the orchestra stops, the conductor turns around and, without warning, directs the audience to sing a cantus firmus, and keep singing it when the orchestra comes back in with counterpoints against it.  My friend Maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn did a great job doing that.

All Hallows

Here's the fourth of five songs I composed on poems from Maurice Manning's great collection of modern psalms, BUCOLICS.  In this song, the poet/farmer thanks "Boss" for everything, for the smallest things, for things you might not even notice, for the most important things.  Who's "Boss"?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I'm so grateful that Maurice gave me permission to set his poems to music.

Bucolics, 4. Thank you for the leaf Boss

In memoriam Mary Oliver (1/17/2019).  Here's the second song of my cycle titled "The Way In" (1986), a setting of Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods" (with kindest permission of the poet).  Mezzo-soprano Sharon Mabry and pianist Lynn Rice-See.

New American Music (Art Songs And Piano Works By Tennessee Composers: Coe, Wood, Rose, Linton)

In Blackwater Woods (Mary Oliver)

In memoriam Mary Oliver (1/17/2019).  Here's the fourth and final song of my cycle titled "The Way In" (1986), a setting of Oliver's "First Snow" (with kindest permission of the poet).

First Snow (Mary Oliver)

Here's my Seventh Quartet, premiered by the wonderful Cassatt Quartet at their Seal Bay Music Festival in July, 2019.  This is the last of their three performances along the Maine coast, this one at the super-cool Space Gallery in Portland.  I've long been enamored of John Marin's Maine paintings; this commission gave me a chance to investigate that love on musical ground (see the attached watercolor, which gave the title to this piece).  Recording by Peter Weitzner.

Seventh Quartet (Maine Title: Sun, Sea, Land)

Composer of concert music; author, professor at Vanderbilt University

Michael Alec Rose

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