That amazing power moment! Thank you for sharing this work with us. I was just singing it this morning! ❤️

Recording by Louisiana State University, Spring 2021 (Weston Lewis, conductor)

Passing Through (2013, rev. 2020)

Intrusive Thoughts (chamber Orchestra) - Live Premiere

Recording of chamber orchestra version from Buskirk-Chumley Theatre in Bloomington, IN on May 8th, 2015.

Baritone vocalist, Connor Lidell
Conductor, Vini Frizzo
Stage Director, David Koté

New Voices Opera Company

Thump - Baritone Aria (Spring 2015)

Stamps Auditorium, October 24th
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Contralto: Rehanna Thelwell
Conductor: Jerry Blackstone
University of Michigan Chamber Choir




Virginia is based on Virginia Woolf´s suicide letter to her husband, dated in May 1941. The idea for this work began when I found this letter four years ago while looking for information about Virginia. I was impressed and intrigued by her writing and artistic personality after reading Mrs Dalloway and The Waves. The letter shocked me and I immediately decided I wanted to write this piece, but this project had to stay in my mind for years until I decided to score it for choir and soloist. 
I couldn’t help but feel compassion for such a talented and thoughtful artist whose suffering would eventually lead her to this final, fatal decision. I felt emotionally compelled by how her art acts as a reflection of these intense emotions. As empathy through art can be a strong mechanism to develop our understanding of one another, I wanted to explore this letter through musical means. 
The contralto, with her dark, low registered vocalizations, is then echoed in the choir through the repetition of the text and direct musical repetition. The use of repeated pitches, glissandis and dense textures serve to create rising and falling tensions through masses of sound. At times, the text is repeated incessantly, eventually losing meaning and coherence amidst the texture of the sound. 
The full letter is below. 

Dearest,

I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would 
have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. 
I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.

Virginia (2015) for Alto and SATB Choir

performed by the String Orchestra at South High School, Minneapolis. This orchestra comprises players with a range of experience on their instruments. This work was composed as part of a project for the McKnight Visiting Composers fellowship.

String Meditation (2018), for string orchestra (all levels)

Poetry by Rabindranath Tagore
The Esoterics - Eric Banks, conductor

No. 29 from Gitanjali ("Song Offerings") by Rabindranath Tagore. Originally written in Bengali in 1910 and translated into English by Tagore in 1913

"He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being."

this great wall

Recital - St. Thomas NYC May 14 2006

Nico Muhly: The Place of Understanding (2006) (Oliver Brewer, tenor)

The Donald Sinta Quartet in Recital - Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society's series at Del Mar College's Wolfe Recital Hall in Corpus Christi, TX

Inspired by the rhythmic ferocity of Bulgarian dance music and the Bulgarian saxophone legend Yuri Yunakov, Bulgarity is energetic explosion of virtuosity. Pulsating meters, dense ornamentation, and wandering modes make this piece distinctly Balkan in character. Although passages are reminiscent of the folk idiom, all material is original.

Bulgarity // The Donald Sinta Quartet (2013)

Scott Senko (b. 1992) is a composer and vocalist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He completed undergraduate studies at Luther College in 2015 where he studied composition with Brooke Joyce and Steve Smith, and voice with Andrew Whitfield. He served as Composer in Residence with Magnum Chorum during their 2016-2017 season and as a Guest Composer for the inaugural consortium of the Libera Composers Association in 2017. 

As a vocalist, Scott has sang tenor with a number of vocal ensembles in the Twin Cities, including: Vox Nova Chorale, Magnum Chorum, MPLS (imPulse), The Radio Choir from American Public Media, and The Singers - Minnesota Choral Artists.

this great wall

Scott Senko

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