A New Year's Gift for Bec

You can listen and see the text here. You can find the music here and on this page of the IMSLP.

Dawn

[September 15, 2025]

You can find the music here and on this page of the IMSLP.

Here is a link to a computer-generated audio recording.

"Dawn" is a companion song to "Daybreak" (2013), which is also set to a poem by William Carlos Williams, and is also for medium voice and piano. If performing these songs as a group, "Dawn" should follow "Daybreak."

Calico Pie

The music is available on this page of the IMSLP.

When it's time to move on

February 19, 2024

You can listen to a computer-generated file here, and find the music here. The music is also available on this page of the IMSLP.

I wrote this piece in memory of the pianist Eric Larsen (1952-2024), who was a dear friend and chamber music partner of my very dear friend Daniel Morganstern. The poem, written by Danny's mother Milly (1913-2000), is one that he shared with me only recently, and a poem that was at the very front of both his mind and my mind during Eric's last days.

We are single threads
intertwined
in the fabric
of each other’s lives

We are words
in each other’s stories

We are notes
in each other’s songs

When it’s time to move on

We step
over the edge
into a new space
where we are transformed
as color
in the thread
as meaning
in the word
as overtone
in the note

We continue
intertwined
through life, death
and transformation

On our journey

--Milly Morganstern

Four Songs from Sunset Gun

You can find the music as well as computer-generated audio file on this page of the IMSLP

The Year, a New Year's Greeting for 2023

You can find the music for medium voice here (there's also a version for high voice). You can listen to the medium voice version here, and you can find the music for both on this page of the IMSLP.

Three Crane Songs

The music is available on this page of the IMSLP.

Hope and I

June 25, 2022

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP, and you can listen to a computer-generated recording here.

This is Susan Coolidge's complete poem. You can find out more about her here. It had been sitting on my computer for a year or so, and had been sitting on my desk for several months. It helped me a great deal to make my way emotionally through yesterday and today to work on it. And it helps to be able to share it right away.

"In the Balance" and "Lacunae" for Mezzo Soprano and Piano

These songs are set to poems by Robyn Sarah, and are available on this page of the North Star website.

Representation for Baritone or Tenor and Piano

[October 7, 2021]

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP.

"My House, I Say" for Tenor and Piano

My setting of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "My House, I Say" is included in volume two of the collection of songs for Tenor and Piano in Modern Music for New Singers: 21st Century American Art Songs, a new anthology of music for young singers published by North Star Music.

Barter

March 11, 2021

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP.

I'm Staying Home for Christmas

I came across this photograph the other day. The tune is obviously not "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and the syllables don't even match the rhythms. However, if you ignore the left-hand harmony, the tune sounds like a second theme of a song I may have heard before.

It started bothering me. The tune fragment kept running through my head with the words, "I'm staying home this Christmas," so I had to use it in a brand-new Christmas song addressing the stamp issue and the current Christmas season. You will find the tune on the stamp at the half-way point of the song. The "original" is in F major, and this song is a whole-step lower, in the key of E-flat major.

You can find a PDF on this page of the IMSLP.

Here's recording by Susan Nelson!



(Thank you, Susan.)

The Months of the Year

You can listen to a computer-generated recording here.

You can find a PDF on this page of the IMSLP.

All of the things that belong to the day for low voice and piano

You can find the music here and listen to a computer-generated audio file here. It is also avaiable on this page of the IMSLP.

Listen to Susan Nelson's beautiful recording of "The Moon."

Impressions

[June 11, 2020]

You can find the music here (transposed higher here) and on this page of the IMSLP. You can listen to a computer-generated recording here. If you are a singer without access to a pianist, and you would like to sing these, you can find audio files for the piano parts for both the mezzo and soprano versions (without the vocal line) here.

Alice Ruth Moore (1875-1935), the daughter of a once-enslaved mother, was born in New Orleans. She graduated from Straight University, and worked in New Orleans as an elementary school teacher. During the 1920s and 1930s Moore, who then went by the name Alice Dunbar-Nelson, was an activist for African American rights and women’s rights, appearing often as a speaker, and writing essays, reviews, and articles in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals.

Where do the Old Years Go?

December 21, 2019

And there's an instrumental version (in a slightly quicker tempo) for alto recorder (or violin) and piano:



And there is (of course) a version for viola and piano:



You can find the music for both versions on this page of the IMSLP, and also listen to a recording of it here.

After Sappho (in Rural Illinois)

You can find the music here and on this page of the IMSLP.

You can listen to it here.

Four Visits to Brügge for Bass-Baritone and Piano

June 3, 2019

You can find the music as well as computer-generated audio files on this page of the IMSLP.

You can hear all four songs strung together here.

Four Tunes

September 26, 2018

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP, and you can also listen to a computer-generated recording here.