Choir

She Sights a Bird

2024

Text by Emily Dickenson

Commissioned by Quorum Boston

SATB choir

This poem is about a cat hunting a bird and failing to do so. This piece will capture the cat's stealth approach and its disappointment when the bird flies away with word painting and a continual scratching noise.

What is G-d?

Text by Quinn Gutman

Commissioned by Quorum Boston

SATB choir

Premiered: December 10 and 13, 2018 at the Josephine A. Fiorentino Community Center in Allston, MA and the First Church in Cambridge, MA.

Duration 3:30

Purchase the score here;

This work questions G-d’s being, identity, and gender. Why is it that our most common image of G-d is an old white man? Maybe G-d’s a young person? Maybe G-d’s a person of color? Maybe G-d’s female or non-binary? Or maybe G-d isn’t a person at all? To the Hebrew speakers who first wrote the old testament, G-d was no more than a masculine noun. Doesn’t mean G-d’s a person. In fact, does the bible even call G-d a person?

Music, When Soft Voices Die

Text by Percy Bysshe Shelley

SATB choir

Premiered June 28, 2011

Duration: 3:00

Music When Soft Voices Die represents how one hears a voice calling. The closer they get to the voice that is calling, the louder it becomes, and the further away, the softer it becomes. The entire piece is built around one large crescendo and decrescendo. It alternates between two sections. One of the sections is a series of contrapuntal melismas on an “Ah” vowel. The dynamics change dramatically over expressive lines in this section. The other section is the choir singing on text. They sing a bit softer and in more of a chordal fashion. The form of this piece is put together like this: Vocalise, Text, Vocalise, Text, Vocalise