ALL WORKS            VOCAL            CHORAL           OPERA / MUSICAL THEATRE          CHAMBER          ORCHESTRA/BAND

 There Came a Wind Like a Bugle (text: Emily Dickinson)

for SATB choir and piano; 3' (2011)
(commissioned by the Festival Choir of Madison) 

performed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Chorale, dir. Bruce Gladstone:

composer's note:  Some poetry takes time to process and understand by reading slowly, and taking time for contemplation.  I love so much of that poetry... But Emily Dickinson's "There Came a Wind Like a Bugle" feels like it grabs me by the shirt collar, pulls me into a tornado, and spits me out at the end.  There's such raw power in this text that I felt like I had to translate that into a musical whirlwind, flying ahead at breakneck speed.  So the piece is built on a 15-beat-long phrase that swirls through all 12 tones of the chromatic scale, circling back on itself over & over, while textures and words and piano phrases and percussive effects swirl all around it.  Until, finally, at the end of the poem, the choir takes a moment to catch its breath & belts out a big climactic phrase before the piano continues the storm, crashing right into the final double barline.  

sample page:

---