10 to the Power of Negative 33 - Christopher Biggs

"I wrote 10^-33 in 2008 for clarinetist Mauricio Salguero in response to a commission from the Missouri Music Teacher’s Association and the Music Teacher’s National Association. The composer and Mauricio Salguero premiered the piece at Washington University at the Missouri Music Teacher’s Association Annual Conference in November 2008.

The piece abstractly incorporates notions of symmetry outlined by Neon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill in their book “Symmetry and the beautiful universe.” I am more concerned with the perception of symmetrical relationships than the precise application of mathematical symmetry. Symmetrical relationships are loosely applied to register, proportion, dynamics, the balance of contrasting materials, panning, and the relationships between the instrument and the electronics. Despite these considerations, the composition of the piece was quite free in terms of materials and overall form. 

The listener will hear multiple layers of sound: the live clarinet, the live clarinet slightly amplified, processing done in the real time to the live clarinet, and the playback of sound files generated by processing clarinet samples. This creates an ambiguity in terms of the source of the sounds during the performance."

(note by the composer)

From Setting Sail - Juliana Hall

"Throughout her career, composer Juliana Hall has periodically returned to the poetry of Emily Dickinson for inspiration in writing her songs. In SETTING SAIL, she has collected a dozen short poems to set in song, but in contrast to many of her works there is no larger narrative at work from one song to the next; this is truly a collection, which may be performed in whole or as a group of songs a singer may wish to excerpt from the set. While these are smaller and more compact songs – the whole collection lasting just 18 minutes – each song in SETTING SAIL opens a little window into a bit of human nature and experience, with topics including the power of books to not only expand the mind but to free the spirit as well, the question of faith vs. science, charming and fantastical interactions with angels, the serious nature of the finality of earthly existence, a loving and compassionate discourse on our human experience living through the medium of time, and there are more…but each is full of Emily’s characteristic wit, playfulness, even humor, as well as her clear perceptions of the daily moments of awareness of our place in the world and the journey into eternity."

(note by the composer)

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea, —
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity!

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

III. If I can stop one heart from breaking

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

VI. Down Time's quaint stream

Down Time’s quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail—
Our Port—a secret—
Our Perchance—a gale.

What Skipper would
Incur the risk,
What Buccaneer would ride,
Without a surety from the wind
Or schedule of the tide?

IX. Faith is a fine invention

“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!

XI. Look back on time with kindly eyes

Look back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In human nature's west!

"Parting" - Cecilia Livingston

"The love story told in this poem can be understood in many ways, and it seemed to call for an ambiguous musical language; it's not jazz and it's not really 'classical' either. The song has three parts. The first section is a sort of smoky, sultry jazz standard. As the singer becomes fixated on the 'speck of dust' she prays won't disturb the mending of the relationship, the music changes and wanders into a more Romantic sound world (the pianist moves from a kind of cocktail piano toa. More Chopin-esque exploration of that vocabulary). The long coda brings these two worlds together in a warm C major, coloured with the sorrow of the singer's anticipation of the inevitable parting and her prayer for 'mending.'

(note by the composer)

“Prayer in Anticipation of Parting”

Before I ever leave
how I imagine returning to you

Like the chipped edge of a ceramic dish
fitted perfectly into place. Not a speck
of dust
disturbed in the break

    Absence is a measurement
calibrated to memory, a scale of units
smaller than the sound of an inhale, only
as wide as the quarry between us
when we lie

        clavicle to clavicle
    hip bone to hip bone

Every breath a coax
            a grain
                    of silent mending

Trevi - Anne McAninch

Commissioned by bassoonists Sue Barber, Sue Heinemann, and Kristin Wolfe Jensen

"The ideas that make up Trevi were developed during a trip to Italy. While in Rome, I learned that the word Trevi refers to more than a beautiful fountain which hoards tourists flock to so they can make their three wishes. The word means three roads, and the fountain was built where three roads meet. It was my goal in writing Trevi to write three lines (roads) that traveled together interweaving motivic ideas that would meet and diverge while developing dissonance with sudden resolve; juxtaposing leaping sharply articulated intervals with a legato Italian folk melody."

(note by the composer)

Divine Aspirations - Sawyer Gage

"Divine Aspirations was written for the 2026 American Liszt Society Conference where the theme for this year’s conference is the return to the sacred through beauty. Many different cultures find evidence of divinity in different forms; from nature, to those around them, art in its many forms, and even to existence itself. This piece takes inspiration from a couple of these. The first movement The Omnipresent Voice is a take on the presence of divinity being found in creation itself, that all things take part of and move within it, and that divinity is everywhere at all times. The constant sounds that are both familiar and unfamiliar, representing the aspects that we recognize as important and the events and perspectives that challenge what we know. The use of drones and various performing techniques both in and out of the piano are used to challenge both performer and listener to see new perspectives.

The second movement, In Pursuit of Enlightenment, is a representation of the journey we all take to understand, accept, fight with, and ultimately resolve our own beliefs. The first half, a post minimalist, almost percussive take at playing the piano. Something that makes sense but doesn't quite feel right, representing working hard to understand and make sense of the world. The second half, a more natural take on ideas at the piano representing the ease of accepting your own beliefs and resolutions, no matter how close or astray they have gone from where they started. The piece closes with a bell like section, evocative of far-off churches, the reminder of where the journey began for some."

(note by the composer)

China West Suite - Chen Yi

Commissioned by the Metropolitan Wind Symphony, Lawrence Isaacson, Music Director, in 2005, the Suite from China West is written in four movements, and was premiered on May 28, 2008, conducted by Lewis J. Buckley at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA. The authentic folk music from China West has amazed and inspired the composer to write this piece, which has folk music elements drawn from the folk songs of Gadameilin and Pastoral of the Meng People; Ashima of the Yi People, Du Mu and Amaliehuo of the Zang People, and Dou Duo and the Lusheng ensemble music of the Miao People. Versions of the piece for marimba and piano, and the version heard in this performance for two pianos, were also made by the composer.