Libretto by David Cote
Aria Featuring Steven Stull, baritone
Full Duration: ca. 24'/ Aria Duration: ca. 4'
Full Instrumentation: soprano, baritone, bass-baritone, flute, piano, 2 violins, viola, cello
Commissioned by Triphammer Arts Inc. with The Arts at Grace and Society for New Music
World Premiere Recording (Live Performance): American Modern Ensemble, featuring Cree Carrico, soprano; Steven Stull, baritone; David Neal, bass-baritone; Universal Preservation Hall (UPH), Saratoga Springs, NY, June 18-19, 2021
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: www.billholabmusic.com
For more information: robertpaterson.com/cocoa-cantata/
Full Video: TBA
View Online Perusal Score: https://issuu.com/robertpaterson/docs/paterson_cocoa_cantata__score-perusal_
Buy Full Score: TBA

ABOUT COCOA CANTATA
Cocoa Cantata is a 21st-century response to J.S. Bach’s Coffee Cantata, one of his secular cantatas, c. 1734. A mini-drama with colorful, comical roles for soprano, baritone, and bass-baritone, this work imitates Bach's instrumentation and explores politics and optics in the multibillion-dollar chocolate industry.

Two chocolate executives, one from a global brand, the other a boutique chocolatier, square off over a corporate takeover, when a food scientist introduces a scientifically engineered "Total Cacao." One bite of it, and each chocolate executive is transformed.

Cocoa Cantata runs approximately 22 minutes, incorporating arias for each character, duets, and a final trio. The tone is lightly satirical, with contemporary allusions to fair-trade practices, the chemistry and symbolism of chocolate, and the marketing of pleasure. Cocoa Cantata will be delicious to anyone who loves chocolate—or tries to control their craving for it!

PROGRAM NOTE
Cocoa Cantata is a 21st-century response to J.S. Bach’s Coffee Cantata. Written for soprano, baritone, and bass-baritone, the work explores politics in the multibillion-dollar chocolate industry. Musically, the piece imitates Bach’s instrumentation, but not his Baroque style. The paternalism of Bach’s secular cantata is replaced by a more evolved (yet humorous) attitude toward issues of patriarchy, fair-trade practices, and the marketing of pleasure.

Cocoa Cantata - What Is This Feeling (Baritone Aria)

Music in my Head

Intuition

07 - Nenad Ljubicic - Nashwille - Intuition

So many things come together in a Cathedral...

Cathedral

03 Olive Oil.WAV

02 Coconut.WAV

Power coursing through your veins, a surge at the edge of exploding, power, power, power...

Soli Deo Gloria!

Power Surge

Each & every I of us  has been bestowed with gifts & tools that are required II navigate this thing called LIFE.  However, how choose II use, or not  use the gifts is  another matter.  No doubt obstacles, challenges, minefields, uneven terrain & bottlenecks  will present themselves in different guises, & all echoing the same mantra “ it is impossible”.  It is @ that crossroad where giving up is the easy thing II do. But the road less travelled is the I II take. Strap your boots up , look impediment in the eye & face her head on, & walk, run,  swim (or whatever takes your fancy) IIwards your sky.
& no it is not Pie contrary Ii popular belief.                - as always IV H.B

PRESS YOUR  RED BUTTON (now & Get What You  Want).

When it rains, it always pours(demo-no vox… yet🤘)

Ask the Dust

Envision a music critic of the 1980s, pencil in hand, notepad out, ready to nitpick even the smallest nuance of a mistake in a piece of music. This theme, in my opinion, is evocative of such a characters personality! Enjoy, "A Feared Music Critic"! 

A Feared Music Critic

Suite for String Orchestra
Duration: 15'
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/suite-for-string-orchestra
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/composers/robert-paterson/
Purchase Sheet Music: http://billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=%22suite+for+string+orchestra%22

PROGRAM NOTE
Unlike some of my previous works, Suite for String Orchestra is not inspired by an over-arching programmatic theme. Although there are some technical and motivic relationships between some of the movements—particularly the first and fifth—the movements are generally unrelated and are meant to be noticeably distinct. It is in five short movements and is intentionally written in an “old-fashioned,” somewhat archaic style. I initially played around with the idea of titling this work Old-fashioned Suite or Old Time Suite, but there seems to be a sufficient sprinkling of “new fangled ideas” in this work to make these alternative titles seem inadequate.

The first movement, Allegro vivace, is written in a “mid-20th century American” style. My model for a few of the sections in this movement is the evocative, German phrase Sturm und Drang, which literally translated means “storm and stress.”

In the second movement, Trapped waltz, I imagine an ethereal, yet cognizant waltz floating above the stratosphere, looking for a place to rest, but hobbled and shackled by a pounding rock and roll drumset. I see this as a metaphor for the various dances throughout history that have come and gone but are continually vying for attention in contemporary culture. The movement fades out at the end, as if the waltz is eternally looking for a place to settle down. Admittedly, I was somewhat inspired by the collage works of Charles Ives.

The third movement, Nocturne, begins slowly and sadly, and I imagine the pulse in the beginning as similar to the gentle breathing of someone who is asleep. The middle of the movement is much more intense and violent, and the end is as soft and calm as the beginning. The first chair violin and the first chair violoncello have brief solos in this movement.

Although material from the middle of the fourth movement, Balinese scherzo, is derived from a Balinese scale, the beginning is somewhat chromatic and the ending is essentially based on the E-major scale. This movement is distinctive in that the orchestra is asked to play pizzicato almost the entire time.

The fifth movement, Finale: allegro moderato, is the movement that is most reminiscent of the first movement. The ending combines material from the beginning of both the first and fifth movements.

Suite For String Orchestra - II. Trapped waltz

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.

Suite For String Orchestra - II. Trapped waltz

Robert Paterson Composer