This cycle explores the theme of humanity’s interaction with nature and takes its text from Wallace Stevens’ Six Significant Landscapes (1916).

The text from Vox Dilecti Mei comes from the second chapter of the Song of Solomon, verses eight through ten. The music is built from two contrasting tonalities.

The musical materials Strange Woods were generated from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Fairy-land.” Pitches and rhythms were assigned according to predetermined patterns and clusters and the accents of the text.

Inspired by my mother's quilting practices, Quilt I was patched together using both isorhythym and fugue.

A whirlwind tour through a land of fantasy. The movement titles were taken from the whimsical labels Jaro Hess applied to his imaginative 1930’s map, entitled “The Land of Make Believe.”

It evokes the swirling of falling cherry blossoms and liveliness of people gathered below with playful rhythms and imitative falling patterns.

A tour de force for a daring soprano showcasing multiple styles and colors and testing dramatic acting capabilities. The baritone is a supporting role.

This piece is a quilt made of varied ideas, musics, and influences, and, like a quilt, it has a top, full of action, color and pattern, and a back where the pattern of the threads hold it together is visible.