Brian Baxter Music · A pair Of airs TEXT BY BETH ROBERTS A pair of airs For Summer, from Winter A little bird saidyou’re thinking of me.I get wild with torture,poor chickadee. Should I warm to a haloor an angel in the snow?Summertime, I’m afraidI don’t remember how. Here is a snowflakethat looks like a […]
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The Eyes of All Future Generations
Brian Baxter Music · The Eyes of All Future Generations Program Note: The Eyes of All Future Generations is a concerto for two percussionists and string orchestra. The work takes inspiration from issues of climate change and how that is manifesting over time as a result of human action and inaction. The percussion soloists employ […]
Ho sentito di una terra distante
TEXTS: LYRICS FROM “HIS MILITARY LIFE” (an imaginary opera created to accompany the novel “Pro Patria” – Bernardino Bernardini, an Italian American Soldier 1915-1919. Original lyrics by Marcella Mencotti ©2017. Translations edited and revised by: ITALINGUA CHICAGO INC., Elisabetta Di Michele, Cristina Tinnirello “Ho Sentito” – OvertureHo sentito di una terra distanteDove siam’ nati, e […]
GHOST SELF
Program Note: Ghost Self is the first of a soon to be six part large scale work entitled Ghost Continent and was inspired by my personal journey of self-discovery. Ghost Continent and Ghost Self come from the pen of American anthropologist, philosopher, and writer Loren Eiseley and refer to his idea that within every human there is […]
Music Box Counterpoint
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN & PURCHASE ON BANDCAMP Instrumentation: string trio Duration: 7 minutes Date: 2015 Program: Music Box Counterpoint is dedicated to my caring and loving wife Emily Wren.
Roots Run Deep (string quartet)
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN & PURCHASE ON BANDCAMP Program Note: In a conversation with my maternal grandfather (Pépère), he made an obvious and yet striking comment about his reality. “My roots run deep here.” He is referring to the Houle family farm, located in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom on which he has lived his entire life. All 90+ […]
The Box of Justice
Program Note: …a comedy for solo tuba player… N.B. The piece is to be performed by a solo tuba player alone. No percussionists or other assistants are allowed. The Box of Justice is dedicated to one Josh Biere. Cheers. Instrumentation: for solo tuba with bongos and kick drum Duration: 3 minutes & 30 seconds Date: 2005, rev. 2014 […]
ALICE
Alice: Text by composer and writer, Luke Gullickson. Alice in the canyon And you are in your room One of them is laughing Working at the loom One of them is crying The moon is coming up And darkened sands are filling Her alabaster cup Instrumentation: voice and piano Duration: 2 minutes Date: 2011
GOLDEN SPRING
Program Note: When Franz Schubert set Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s Die Forelle for voice and piano he omitted the final stanza. Not necessarily renowned as a great poet, it is not surprising that Schubert chose to avoid Schubart’s arrogantly moralizing final stanza and instead focus simply on the fish and its plight as observed by a […]
SPRING SONG
Program Note: Intended for performance in the Fern Room of Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory, Spring Song is a soundscape that derives its materials from Felix Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words, op. 62, no. 6. Jens Jensen, the chief landscape architect behind the Conservatory’s construction between 1906 and 1908 claimed this short Mendelssohn piano work as inspiration […]
CAHOKIA
Program Note: Cahokia was inspired by the rise and fall of a complex prehistoric Native American chiefdom located at what we know today as the Cakokia Mounds. When I first experienced these stunning man-made landforms in person I was amazed that such substantial remnants of human history existed in the United States. I was filled […]
FOUNTAIN
Program Note: I initially sketched Fountain during the summer of 2008 when I would take frequent trips out to Buckingham Fountain in Chicago’s Grant Park on the lakefront. While sitting near the fountain I was drawn in by the sounds of the water shooting into the sky then falling back onto the fountain as well […]
ELEGY
Program Note: Elegy was written on February 14th, 2008 in Chicago. The work is dedicated to the victims of gun violence perpetrated on the campus of Northern Illinois University that same day in DeKalb. Instrumentation: alto saxophone and piano Duration: 2 minutes, 15 seconds Date: 2008
CHOPPING WOOD
Program Note: This recording was created from the sounds of wood chopping in the countryside of western Michigan. Instrumentation: recorded wood chopping Duration: 5 minutes Date: 2012
OLD WORLD ELEGY
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN & PURCHASE ON BANDCAMP Program Note: Richie Hofmann’s Old World Elegy was selected by Brian Baxter as the winner of the 2012 Memorious Art Song Contest facilitated collaboratively by Eric Malmquist, director of Singers On New Ground and Rebecca Morgan Frank, Editor-in-Chief of Memorious: A Journal of New Verse and Fiction. Baxter’s setting […]
AMERICA, HERE’S MY BOY
Program Note: My arrangement of Beck’s ‘America, Here’s My Boy’ from his Song Reader. Instrumentation: voice, violin, and cello Duration: 3 minutes Date: 2013
THE MORNING OF…
Program Note: Written for the Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles. Instrumentation: 2 voices and doumbek Duration: 3 minutes & 45 seconds Date: 2007
SYMPHONY IN MOVEMENT
Program Note: Motion can be deceptive in the sense that an object may appear to be moving when it is in fact not moving at all. It depends entirely on one’s individual perspective. When I commute to work everyday I will often take the #147 CTA bus in to downtown. For those of you who are not […]
LUOGU
Program Note: Inspired by my time spent visiting China, Luogu reflects the importance of symbols in Chinese culture. Literally translated, luogu means “gongs and drums” however the Chinese use the term to refer to their entire percussion ensemble which of course can incorporate much more than simply “gongs and drums”. Here I have distilled my […]
BOOK OF DRUM
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN & DOWNLOAD ON BANDCAMP Also available from iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc… ‘Book of Drum’ features a tight-knit collection of original tracks exploring diverse sounds and rhythms of the drum set through the lens of my life in Chicago. I drum my way through the instrument’s wide-ranging sonorities using a diverse array of […]