This work was written as a tribute to Palestrina and Victoria.  It is based on Latin Christmas texts.  These include Resonet in laudibus, O magnum mysterium, Quem vidistis pastores?, and Dies sanctificatus illuxit nobis.

Quem Genuit Maria

Song of Shining Eyes was commissioned by the Dreambox Collective for ‘Coming to Our Senses’ as part of its 2021 season, with both music and poetry by me. Its first performance was given by Sydney based soprano Victoria Bromberger. Due to Sydney being in covid lockdown at the time, the event was a virtual online one. In the interests of program diversity, Chloe Chung created a video that was viewed as Miss Bromberger’s rendering was heard.

As well as fulfilling the brief of engaging with the event theme, it is dedicated to my partner, whose shining eyes inspired its title.

The development of this song entailed tumult and disappointment. Rather than go into that,  I will share the response of the dedicatee. In response to the work being much reduced in scope from its initial conception, she said “so it was meant to be longer; and now it’s shorter. But, it’s the quality, not the quantity that is important”. And so, it is. Somehow a process of erosion has resulted in a short, much more direct expression of love and gratitude than originally imagined, a simple Song of Shining Eyes.

Song Of Shining Eyes

I. Remain: With quiet energy
II. Rosebud: Gossamer, like glass
III. Melting: Legato espr[essivo] 
IV. Drum: Boldly
V. Pearls
VI. Sigh

Six Pieces for Soprano and Piano (1972)

Cradle Song, for soprano voice and piano

Rumi Poem Ensemble

Woodwinds (Bassoon, Oboe) and Soprano Voice.
This piece is inspired by the beautiful landscape of Idaho when I was there on a composition residency.  South Bowl refers to the terrain of ski country.  I wrote lyrics for sections of the piece.

Musicians on this recording are:  Denise Forbes on Bassoon, Ron Kozak on Oboe and Judi Silvano on Voice.

South Bowl

This is the World Premiere performance of Aaron Alter's "Fire and Sleet and Candlelight" for Soprano voice and Chamber Ensemble that took place in New York on December 2, 2022. The performers were:
Ljiljana Winkler - soprano (to whom the work was dedicated)
Peter Oswald - trumpet
Lynn Bechtold - violin
Katie Scheele - oboe
Gene Pritsker - electric guitar
Jai Jeffreyes - piano
Charles Coleman - conductor

Performed as part of Composers Concordance presents Art of the Art Song, featuring soprano Ljiljana Winkler with Formation Solenne / CompCord Ensemble on Friday, December 2, 2022 at Greenwich House, New York City.

The text is based on the poem by Elinor Wylie.

Fire and sleet and candlelight.

For this you've striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.

For this, you've wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.

From sand unslak-ed
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked
Among trysted swords.

There's a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.

Your race is ended—
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the sun.

Fire, sleet, candlelight.

For more information on Fire and Sleet and Candlelight and other works by Aaron Alter, please visit https://aaronalter.com/compositions .

Fire And Sleet And Candlelight - World Premiere in New York

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (née Kingsmill April 1661 - August 5th, 1720) was an English poet and courtier who is widely regarded as one of the most integral female poets of the Restoration Era. Her 1701 work "The Tree" is a pastoral poem that praises the beauty of a particularly old and long standing tree, treating this piece of nature as an almost independent agent willing to be a complimentary helper to all the people around it, even in death. I added a flute to this particular song setting in order to represent the lauding bird song and the reed song of the shepherd.

The text:

Fair tree! for thy delightful shade
'Tis just that some return be made;
To thy cool shadows, and to thee.
When thou to birds doest shelter give,
Thou music doest from them receive;
If travellers beneath thee stay
Till storms have worn themselves away,
That time in praising thee they spend
And thy protecting pow'r commend.
The shepherd here, from scorching freed,
Tunes to thy dancing leaves his reed;
Whilst his lov'd nymph, in thanks, bestows
Here flow'ry chaplets on thy boughs.
Shall I then only silent be,
And no return be made by me?
No; let this wish upon thee wait,
And still to flourish be thy fate.
To future ages may'st thou stand
Untouch'd by the rash workman's hand,
Till that large stock of sap is spent,
Which gives thy summer's ornament;
Till the fierce winds, that vainly strive
To shock thy greatness whilst alive,
Shall on thy lifeless hour attend,
Prevent the axe, and grace thy end;
Their scatter'd strength together call
And to the clouds proclaim thy fall;
Who then their ev'ning dews may spare
When thou no longer art their care,
But shalt, like ancient heroes, burn,
And some bright hearth be made thy urn.

-Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, 1701

"The Tree" (Note Performer mockup)

Program notes from the premiere: 

My third successful attempt at setting poetry to music, “An Invocation to Sleep” is a song composed for soprano solo with piano accompaniment. In seeking to evoke the conflicted and uneasy feelings that prevent Finch from being able to fall asleep, I assigned the piano a multitude of thick, muddy and dissonant chords throughout several sections of the piece (such as during the first two lines of verse). During parts where she imagines the serene, dreamlike sleep that she so longs for, I opted for tertiary sonorities in the piano consisting of only fourths and fifths sans thirds, to conjure a sense of floatyness, devoid of even grounding.

The full text:

How shall I woo thee, gentle rest,

To a sad mind with cares opprest?

By what soft means, shall I invite

Thy powers in-to my soul to Night?

Yet gentle Sleep, if thou wilt come,

Such darkness shall prepare the room

As thy own Palace overspreads

(Thy palace, stor’d with peacefull beds)

And silence too, shall on thee wait,

Great, as in the Turkish state.

Whilst still as death, I will be found,

My arms by one another bound,

And my dull lidds, so clos’d shall be,

As if already seal’d by thee.

Thus I'll dispose, the outward part,

Would I could quiet, too my heart.

But in in that anxious rebells stead,

Behold, I offer thee my head,

My head, I better can command,

And that I bow, beneath thy hand.

Nor do I think, that heretofore

Our first great Father, gave thee more,

When on a flowery bank, he lay,

And did they Strictest laws obey;

For, to compose his lovely Bride,

He yielded not alone his side,

But as we judge, by the event

Half of his heart, too with it went,

Which waking, drew him soon away

To the fair bosome, where it lay

Pleas’d to admit his rightfull claim,

And leaning still towards whence it came.

Then gentle Sleep, expect from me

No more than I have proffer’d thee;

For, if thou wilt not hear my Pray’rs

‘Till I have vanquish’d all my cares,

Thou'lt stay, ‘till kinder death supplies thy place,

The surer Friend, though with the harsher face.

-Anne Finch (ca. 1701?)

An Invocation To Sleep (Note Performer Mockup)

Program notes from the premiere:

When I joined Dr. Teodori’s newly created New Music Ensemble as violist during my senior year at Southwestern University, he asked whether I had any desire to compose a piece for the group to perform together. Since I was writing this composition purely for specific performers and a particular occasion, instead of trying to tell some kind of story, as I typically do with most of my music, I instead endeavored to evoke a distinct mood: in this case, eeriness! In doing so, I made much of the harmonic texture droning and dissonant, as all of the background voices blend together into a sort of singular, hazy web of sound.

Existential Nightmare, Op. B4

Composer based in York, UK.

Contact: jam.williamson@gmail.com

Aaron Alter is a composer from Carlsbad, California.  His new music, which he calls his "New Beginning" is an exploration of a new style and energy that defies categorization.    

A native of Chicago, Aaron Alter's musical background was a product of the rich musical life that he found growing up in the Windy City. Aaron received his Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University, where he studied piano with Frances Larimer and Gui Mombaerts, and composition with Lynden DeYoung and David Noon. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree from Princeton University, where he studied with Milton Babbitt and James K. Randall.  

Aaron’s new music was first performed in 2015, with the performance of “Homage to Josquin” for two flutes, piano, electric bass and drum set by The New Mexico Performing Arts Society in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Homage to Josquin” received an Honorable Mention in the 2016 American Prize competition for Chamber Music Composition.  

Works such as "Solar Rays" and "Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry" defy genres and exist in Classical ensemble and Jazz Big Band versions. Both the classical piano trio (piano, violin and ‘cello) and Jazz Big Band versions of “Solar Rays” have received Silver medals at the Global Music Awards. Aaron’s Introspective Blues #1 for Flute and Harp has become his most popular work, with over 16,100 plays on SoundCloud and over 5,200 plays on Jango Internet Radio. Aaron’s music has been featured on the albums “One Minute”, “Two Minutes”, “Gimel” and “Daleth”, by the flutist Iwona Glinka on the Sarton and Phasma Music labels, all of which have won Silver Medals at the Global Music Awards.  

Aaron has received two commissions in the past two years for choral works with an instrumental ensemble from The New Mexico Performing Arts Society.  The first commission, “Together We Create and Sing! (inspired by the music of Franz Joseph Haydn”) was a semi-finalist at the 2018 American Prize competition for Choral Music Composition and received a Silver Medal at the August 2019 Global Music Awards.  The latest commission, “Lo Lanu Ha-Shem” (a setting of Psalm 115) received a Silver Medal from the March 2019 Global Music Awards.  

Aaron is a regular contributor of compositions to the repertoire of the flutist Iwona Glinka, the pianist and Steinway Artist, Susan Merdinger, the pianist Vania Pimentel, The New Mexico Performing Arts Society and Composers Concordance in New York.  

Aaron also serves as an Executive Board Member of the Carlsbad Friends of the Arts.

The William Thomas McKinley Archive is dedicated to preserving the music and legacy of American composer, William Thomas McKinley (1938 - 2015). The Archive is supported by the McKinley Foundation.

About McKinley (taken from Wikipedia):
William Thomas McKinley (December 9, 1938 – February 3, 2015) was an American composer and jazz pianist born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania). He wrote more than 300 musical compositions, many of which have been recorded by such ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony.

McKinley was the recipient of numerous honors, including an award and citation from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and eight National Endowment for the Arts grants.[1] He is also among the founders of the label MMC Recordings.[2]

His son Elliott Miles McKinley is also a composer.[3]

He died on 3 February 2015.[4]

I try to write rich, intense, rewarding, expressive music reflecting my various music theory and performance interests as well as love of nature, literature and my explorations in aesthetics and East Asian culture and spirituality.

I am a composer, percussionist and co-artistic director of the composer-performer collective Sideband as well as member of the experimental improvisation project 'Mind on Fire'. I began serious musical studies with a focus on xylophone and percussion, later developing an interest in composition, and improvisation. I also have a strong interest in non-Western music, and have undertaken study in Javanese Gamelan and Tabla, as well as studying jazz, resulting in a broad and highly individual compositional and performance style.
I have written for a wide range of music ensembles, from symphony orchestra to solo piano, with a my focus being chamber music incorporating voice and improvisation-based music in which I perform on vibraphone. My focus is on experimentation with rhythmic and formal elements, and microtonal harmony as well as incorporating developments in atonal theory. 
My music has been commissioned or performed by a range of ensembles and soloists, including Daniel Herscovitch, Luminescence, Sideband, the Song Company, Ensemble Offspring, members of Elision, Western Australia Symphony Orchestra New Music Ensemble under Roger Smalley, Australian Piano Quartet, Kerry Yong, Jihyeon Lim, conductor Barry Webb, and the Sydney Conservatorium Percussion Ensemble. A number of works have been recorded for broadcast by the ABC.
As a percussionist I have performed in a variety of ensembles, with a focus on participating in performances of his own music. Recently, the focus has increasingly been on performing, as a member of Sideband and in Mind on Fire, an improvisation-based project with my brother, Sam Gill.

I taught composition and music theory for fifteen years at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2000 to 2015), and occasionally engaged in casual lecturing up to 2020.
Further information about my ideas can be found in my writings, such as: www.sideband.com.au/zen-music-gill.html
www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/…-on-fire
www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/…uestions


PLEASE BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE TITLE OF EACH INDIVIDUAL TRACK SO YOU CAN SEE SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON EACH PIECE!

Hello everyone! My name is Trevor McIntosh, and I'm a Dallas/Fort Worth area based up and coming music composer looking to share my passion with the world! At my alma mater, Southwestern University, I received two years of training under Dr. Jason Hoodergyde and around five months of instruction under Dr. Michael Mikulka. I write various forms of modern classical music and alternative rock music. As for now, I'll be using this channel to post any studio or live recordings of my music that I'm able to obtain!

New tracks tagged #soprano voice