Scriptorium IV - Verdigris | Edit 2 - 210514

Scriptorium III - Lampblack | Edit 2 - 210514

Scriptorium II - Orpiment | Edit 2 - 210514

Scriptorium I - Tyrian Purple | Edit 2 - 210514

Ars Poetica is a collaborative work, developed with poet Marlanda Dekine,  resulting in a hybrid collection of text and music drawing from the poet's cultural and biological roots as a Gullah-Geechee person, juxtaposed with the shifting textures, dense harmonies, and rhythmic energy of the North Atlantic Modernist concert tradition. Here we see a paratactic resolution to the tension of text and music; the congruences here in affect and in structure are both enriched by the delicacy of their interplay  Written for violin, guitar, cello, and spoken word, the piece surfaces insights into the powers of being itself: into the gift of heritage, and spiritual technologies which defy any terrifying ‘thrown-ness’ of subjugation, technologies that speak to us through myth and history and the world-transforming action of art. Ars Poetica consists of a long poem in five parts, with four substantial, sometimes virtuosic intermezzi between each. Speech, music, and poetry from different traditions are braided together, an endeavor to resuscitate dormant artistic traditions predating modern musical or literary categories, reconstituting a multi-dimensional “ars poetica” for the Now. 
https://www.douglasboyce.net/ars-poetica

I. Wilderness [ 0:00 | https://on.soundcloud.com/K3qSt ]
II. Intermezzo I [ 5:06 | https://on.soundcloud.com/mWMPA ]
III. Returning [ 7:33 | https://on.soundcloud.com/dnu5P ]
IV.  Intermezzo II [ 10:39 | https://on.soundcloud.com/v8Ank ]
V. Out There [ 12: 27 | https://on.soundcloud.com/6aEvN ]
VI. Intermezzo III [ 14:30 | https://on.soundcloud.com/UttFo ]
VII. Reclamation [ 15:31 | https://on.soundcloud.com/1VWXZ ]
VIII. Intermezzo IV [ 17:29 | https://on.soundcloud.com/S5YKa ]
IX. Risk [ 19:08 | https://on.soundcloud.com/DXpHF ]

Ars Poetica

Daydreams for Strings

Premiered by the St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School Orchestra at the 2023 VMEA Composition Festival in Richmond, VA in November 2023. Also performed by the Washington Metropolitan Youth Orchestra in May 2024.

Daydreams for Strings (MIDI realization)

Blue Boat Home, for SATB choir and piano

BLUE BOAT HOME was commissioned by Madrigalia (Cary Ratcliff, Artistic Director) for their “Earthkeeping” concerts in April of 2024. These concerts were designed to showcase the beauty of our earth and the urgent need to preserve it.

Performance by Madrigalia, conducted by Cary Ratcliff

Blue Boat Home text by Peter Mayer

Blue Boat Home

2024: A Centennial Overture (Commissioned by St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School)

Anticipation of the Arrival of a New Lover, The (Etude for Piano No 2_

Tate is a composer and violist from Alexandria, Virginia.

Daydreams for Strings (MIDI realization)

Tate Commission