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 […]
Category: CHAMBER MUSIC
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 […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
WILD ONION
Program Note: I have always considered Chicago to be aptly named. The name “Chicago” or “Checagou” as referenced by Robert de LaSalle is derived from a French rendering of the word shikaakwa of the Miami-Illinois Native American language. It loosely translates as “wild onion” or “wild garlic”. Beyond the actual garlic plants for which the […]
A GREAT COMMERCIAL CITY
Click here to sample online and purchase from Cedille Records website. Also available from iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, etc… Program Note: As a composer I have always found inspiration from places I have lived or experienced. Having called Chicago home for several years now and having spent my childhood growing up in the shadow of this […]
MONKS MOUND
Program Note: Where we stand, have stood many others. Layers of unmentioned history lay dormant under our feet. What secrets have past civilizations left behind? Buried rooms filled with bones, passages with faded warnings, ghostly whispers leaking through the cracks in the sidewalks? There are mysteries that lay beneath the hubbub of our modern world. Monks […]
NOISE POLLUTION
Program Note: Noise pollution is most commonly manifested as construction or transportation sounds. In Chicago, we have our fair share of both. Noise Pollution originally written for the Anaphora Ensemble was completed in Chicago on Monday, November 8, 2010 with all subsequent revisions completed by the end of 2011. Instrumentation: Percussion, Flute/Alto Flute, Clarinet in […]