SATB (divisi) a cappella choir

Performed by: The University of North Texas A Cappella Choir
Soprano Solo: Brandi Spybuck
Director: Dr. Allen Hightower

Dedication: To the Children of The Sandy Hook Massacre

Words: © Copyright 2017 by Kathryn I. W. Sparks.  
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Music: © Copyright 2018 by Galaxy Music Corporation, Inc.,
a division of ECS Publishing Group.  www.ecspublishing.com  
All rights reserved.  Used by permission.

Last Lullaby(e)

April 2017

Last Lullaby

From Vertigo Perspectives, a new song-cycle dedicated to the victims of September 11th, 2001. This specific recording is the second movement within the work, "My Tomb". The original performance by nationally acclaimed baritone, and recent graduate of The University of North Texas, Benjamin Howard occurred in the Summer of 2016 at Songfest! in Los Angeles, California.

Samuel Sweet's Album

My Tomb

A new song-cycle that utilizes actual text messages as the main text within the work. Originally premiered in the Fall of 2016, by baritone Mason Jarboe at The University of North Texas. The text messages themselves are originally from Mr. Jarboe's relationship that he was in the middle of during a summer intensive for opera works in Northern New York.

Friday, July 4, 8:53pm

Monday, July 21, 10:44pm

Thursday, July 31, 12:33pm

My new piece from an ongoing commission with the spectacular Tenor, Martin Clark Jr. "a just soliloquy" is the first piece from my new cycle, "Pulse" that touches on the challenges, joys, and remembrances of the LGBTQ+ community. 
This specific piece is centered around the Pulse Night Club Terrorist Attacks in the Summer of 2016, with that in mind I have chosen to dedicate this work to those that have been effected in any way by this tragedy. 

We are proud. We are strong. We are united as one. #Resist

The piece is written for high voice and piano. Please enjoy a small bit of commentary by myself at the premiere of this piece in the Spring of 2017 at The University of North Texas, Voertman Hall.

a just soliloquy

Irish Blessing
-SATB divisi, piano, and violin-

Flower Mound High School Jaguar Chorale
Director: Dr. Mark Rohwer
Accompanist: Lisa DeBellevue
Violinist: Elijah E. Jacob

Irish Blessing

Even When He is Silent
-mezzo-soprano, piano, and cello-

Mezzo-Soprano: Shelbi Herndon
Pianist: Luke Ferraguti
Cellist: Timothy Pizzichemi

Dedicated to Sonia Warshawski (Prisoner No. 48689)

Origins:

There are very few texts that are of such importance in our lives as composers, this text, however is one of them. After my first success with Ms. Claire Choquette’s piece at The University of North Texas, 142530, in the Spring of 2016 I knew that I was going to need to continue the process of marrying the stories of victims during the Holocaust to the intimate medium of art song. This eventually opened the door for Ms. Shelbi Herndon at the Meadows School of Music at Southern Methodist University in Dallas to reach out and suggest a possible commission for a new work based around the famous anonymous poem colloquially named, “Even When He is Silent”- thus we have a new work dedicated to one of the oldest living victims of the Holocaust that currently resides in my hometown of Overland Park, Kansas.

Text:
	
	Following World War II in Cologne, Germany a group of American soldiers found an inscription scrawled across a stone wall in dark cellar. The cellar supposedly housed several Jews that were attempting to escape the onslaught of the Holocaust during the 1930’s and 40’s. Since its discovery, the text has brought an intimate perspective to the many who have read the poem, and has lent itself perfectly for music-making for the 20th and 21st Century composer. The text (below) is a dialogue of hope in its rawest form, and is undoubtedly one of the most blatant examples of an internal struggle with the divine and one’s own mortality in the wake of death and destruction. 


I believe in the sun
Even when it is not shining.
And I believe in love,
Even when there is no one there.
And I believe in God,
Even when he is silent.


	-Unknown Author


Sonia Warshawski:

	Sonia’s story is beyond what most could even fathom regarding survival during the Holocaust. 91-years of age, Sonia currently resides in Overland Park, Kansas where she owns a tailor shop that she opened 33 years ago with her now deceased husband, John Warshawski (another Holocaust Survivor). Her story starts in Poland during the Nazi invasion, then being placed in a ghetto at the age of 17 and forced into slave labor. After the liquidation of the ghetto, she and her mother were moved to Majdanek death camp where her mother did not survive. From Majdanek she was moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Bergen-Belsen until the British liberation of 1945. On the day of her liberation Sonia was shot, and nearly died from her wounds but eventually healed and moved to Kansas City with her husband in 1948. Sonia now lives a life full of love, and with the sole goal of educating the future generations of our society about the horrors she faced during the 20th Century. Her hope: to not let history repeat itself. In 2017 a documentary came out about her life, Big Sonia, and has now received national and international accolades. 
	My piano instructor in Overland Park, Kansas heard about my goal of finding a new story to write about for my next work in this series of art songs. She informed me that her sister, Claudia, was actually very good friends with Sonia Warshawski, and that she would be the perfect subject for my next work. Intrigued about the prospect to learn more about her story, I reached out to Sonia and Claudia. After explaining my idea for this next piece Sonia agreed to meet with me for an interview. What was expected to be just an hour, turned into a 3-hour session of one of the most inspiring moments in my compositional career. After listening and looking at photos I asked Sonia for the chance of using her number, 48689 as the next in the musical sequence of my compositional goals. She agreed, and finally after a year of creating and finishing my degree at the University of North Texas, I finally bring to you this piece.

Even When He is Silent

142530

-mezzo-soprano, piano, cello-

Mezzo-Soprano: Claire Choquette

Samuel Sweet

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