A Time For Us

rockon2021

eloise

My first song soundtrack type.
I hope you enjoy this!

Bloom

Combstead Sent me a track and I added Lyrics, vocals and guitar.
So much fun.
Thanks, Mark.
COMBSTEAD: @markcombs-928282858

We Didn't Stay - COMBSTEAD / Robert Grigg

Slow day.
The holes in the clouds makes the 
dream fade.
The pills will not solve it.
No weekday.
Can ever replace the way friday. 
Can transform your world.
Oh, there's a girl.
A pain in your rib cage.
Is all.

Mind-frame.
Is not looking upwards in cold space.
Unravelling as you freeze in place.
The clock keeps on ticking.
You're blown away.
Out from the whirl.
Oh, there's a girl. a millstone you carry is all.

A down day.
Not looking outward but in.
Waste on the table is blown away. 
Can't make the connection between states.
Put on your act.
For the girl. 
She's all you have left in this world.

Oh, a fugue state.
Another enchantment is laid to waste.
Stare in the mirror.
Confused face,
Staring back outwardly fine.
What's mine is mine.
And the girl?
Becomes all-encompassing.




Slow Day

Whitman's America - VIII. A Prairie Sunset (Soprano Solo)
Duration: ca. 24'
for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra

Performed by American Modern Orchestra and Albany Pro Musica, Kent Tritle, conductor, Larry Pine, narrator, Caitlin Lynch, Soprano Soloist, Chad Sloan, Baritone Soloist, José Daniel Flores-Caraballo, Albany Pro Music Artistic Director, Mostly Modern Festival, Arthur Zankel Music Center, Filene Concert Hall, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, June 15, 2018.
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.p…n%27s+america
For More Information: robertpaterson.com/whitmans-america
View Score Online: issuu.com/robertpaterson/docs/…n_s_america__score-p
Formerly titled Walt's America for world premiere.

NOTE: Instrumentation is designed to be identical to the Brahms Requiem, but with additional percussion.

PROGRAM NOTE
I have always been very fond of Walt Whitman and his poetry, not only for the inherent beauty and sense of optimism he illustrates in many of his works, but also for his intimacy, directness, colorful descriptions, and the way in which he sings the praises of nature and our role in it as individuals.

Whitman’s America is a setting of six poems from Whitman’s final version of Leaves of Grass, often called the Death Bed Edition, since he compiled this version the year he died. My work is constructed in an arch form as a sort of quasi-fantasia. I view each connected movement or section as a scene or vision, perhaps from an imagined Whitman as he lay on his deathbed. My goal was to capture and highlight a variety of themes that permeate Whitman’s poems, and in particular, themes that have to do with his love of America and the American people.

The work begins with Gliding o’er all, a poem in which Whitman portrays a positive attitude toward death; he is prepared for it and ready to embrace it. He presents a tone of acceptance through the irony of singing of many deaths, for the positive act of singing, in the way he imagines, does not typically correlate with death. Next is I Dream’d in a Dream, sung by a solo baritone, a poem that describes a utopic vision of peace and harmony. Following that is I Hear America Singing, about American pride and having pride in one’s work. Next is America, describing the destiny of America as a nation, his love of the masses, his devotion to Democracy and America fulfilling the spiritual needs of its people. Second to last is A Prairie Sunset, sung by a solo soprano, a poem that captures the beauty of the American prairie, an aspect of the American landscape that Whitman was very passionate about. Finally, I end with After the Dazzle of Day, a beautiful poem describing the starry night sky, an evening filled with music and his own internal symphony during the silence that follows.

Whitman’s America was commissioned by the Gulf Coast Symphony (Fort Myers, FL) as part of their 2020 Commissioning Project, Andrew M. Kurtz, Music Director and Conductor.

Movement Titles:
I. Gliding o'er all
II. I Dream’d in a Dream
III. I Hear America Singing
IV. America
V. A Prairie Sunset
VI. After the Dazzle of Day

Whitman's America - VIII. A Prairie Sunset (Soprano Solo)

"Aunque me muera" es una hipérbole de los sentimientos tóxicos, obsesiones, apegos y pensamientos posesivos que muchos confunden con el amor.

Música y letra: Lorena Gutiérrez y Raymundo Bosch
Producción musical y Arreglos: Puerto Anónimo

Aunque Me Muera

Mid tempo rock track from Beats Working album 'Putting It About'

Walls Between Us by Beats Working (John Hardman)

Caves And Dungeons

Eternal Reflections for mixed a cappella choir
Duration ca. 14'
Mvt. III. Do not stand at my grave and weep, text by Mary E. Frye. Text in the public domain.
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_137&products_id=901
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/eternal-reflections

PROGRAM NOTE (LONG VERSION)
Eternal Reflections consists of settings of the poems A Song on the End of the World by Czeslaw Milosz, Life’s Tragedy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and Do not stand at my grave and weep by Mary E. Frye.

Milosz is a Nobel Prize-winning, Lithuanian and Polish-American poet, prose writer and translator, and is widely considered one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. After spending most of World War II in Nazi-occupied Warsaw working for underground presses, he emigrated to America and taught at the University of California at Berkeley for more than twenty years. I chose this poem partly because I knew this work would be premiered in Berkeley, where he lived for many years.

Paul Laurence Dunbar is America’s first prominent African-American poet and was a child of ex-slaves. Although he died at the relatively young age of 33, he produced a large body of work, including this poem and the lyrics for In Dahomey (1903), the first musical written and performed entirely by African-Americans to appear on Broadway. He was friends with many prominent figures of his day, including Wilbur and Orville Wright, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and toward the end of his life he was honored with a ceremonial sword by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Mary E. Frye was a housewife and florist who became well-known because of her poem. According to an article in the London Times, “Frye had never written any poetry before 1932, when she and her husband had a young German Jewish girl, Margaret Schwarzkopf, staying with them. According to Frye, their guest had been concerned about her mother, who was ill in Germany, but she had been warned not to return home because of increasing anti-Semitic unrest. When her mother died, the heartbroken young woman told Frye that she never had the chance to ‘stand by my mother’s grave and shed a tear”.” Although many versions of this un-copyrighted poem exist, the version used in this setting is the one Frye claimed as definitive before she died.

Although the three poems are related thematically, there are a few other details that link them together. They are all by poets who lived in America, and both Dunbar and Frye were born in Dayton, Ohio. The poems by both Milosz and Frye are profoundly influenced by the tragedies of World War II, and both Milosz and Frye passed away in 2004. Finally, all three poems use musical and aural metaphors, which are particularly useful when setting poems for a choir. These movements may be performed individually or together as a three-movement work.

Eternal Reflections

Buy on Amazon

Eternal Reflections - III. Do not stand at my grave and weep

Harvest Night

American composer Robert Paterson is a true New Yorker—born and bred in Buffalo, he lived in Rochester and Ithaca for over ten years, in New York City for over twenty years, and now lives in Saratoga Springs, near the Adirondacks. Paterson’s colorful music embraces a wide variety of themes, everything from goddesses and online dating to mathematics and the environment. His music is filled with emotion and fierce rhythmic energy, marked by elegance, wit, and meticulous craftsmanship. Named Composer of The Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie Hall, Paterson is the winner of the Alfred I. DuPont Award, and his opera Three Way won the Grammy® under Best Classical Producer of the Year. His music is often a Best of the Year pick on National Public Radio. His orchestral tone poem, Dark Mountains, regularly airs on NPR’s Performance Today. Three Way premiered with Nashville Opera, then BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and across the United States. Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, The Oratorio Society of New York, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Musica Sacra, Austin Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and ensembles worldwide perform his works. Paterson gives masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. He is the Artistic Director and house composer for Mostly Modern Projects. Robert is a lifelong vegan and advocates for animals and the environment, celebrating the natural world with ground-breaking works such as his Triple Concerto, A New Eaarth, Listen, and I Go Among Trees.

Eternal Reflections - III. Do not stand at my grave and weep

Robert Paterson Composer