Composition Components

John Corigliano and Mark Adamo’s exciting new work is a juxtaposition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Bacchae by Euripides. The result is a searing account that points to the monster inside ourselves, not society. This world premiere production is led by director James Darrah who has created a dream-like realm that will frighten and excite.

Last Year's four-movement narrative speaks to anxieties surrounding the ever-increasing threats of climate change, while also paying homage to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Co-commissioned by American Composers Orchestra, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and ROCO.

A pastiche nestled inside a portrait, this miniature for piano imagines Leonard Bernstein interrupting an antic and digressive conversation with a friend to play through the first draft of an imagined birthday piece for his colleague Jennie Tourel, the mezzo-soprano who introduced his song cycles “I Hate Music!” and “La Bonne Cuisine.” Phone Call and Improvisation is dedicated, with affection and gratitude, to Lara Downes, who commissioned the piece and introduced it at CUNY’s Bernstein Marathon at Elebash Hall on December 2nd, 2017.

In this original story, Claus is a prince of an Elven realm in the far north, son of a conflicted Queen sorceress and a King vanished under mysterious circumstances.

Orchestral arrangement of Queen Sophine’s climactic aria from 'Becoming Santa Claus.'

The enterprising recording company Pentatone, which is firmly committed to new American music, commissioned from me this setting of Wendy Cope’s lovely poem for chorus and chamber orchestra; San Francisco’s chamber choir Volti sang the premiere, which was released on disk that winter.

A three-part chamber music piece for baritone and string quartet based on Billy Collins' original poem. Premiered by Thomas Hampson and the Jupiter Quartet.

The opera librettist (and dear friend) Mark Campbell and I were at the New York Festival of Song concert when our treasured colleague Steven Blier announced his engagement to James Russell; what could we do but write a song? Matthew Boehler sang the bass-clef premiere, but—because what’s an octave between friends?—a version for mezzo-soprano is available as well.

“HERE” began life as a piece for SATB chorus and piano, but—only because there was something so bravura, so glamourous about it, that suggested an individual, rather than a group—I was never quite convinced that it wasn’t a solo piece. Then Opera America asked for a contribution to their songbook celebrating the opening of the National Opera Center: apparently life is full of second chances. The rest, if not history, is a setting for baritone and piano: Jesse Blumberg and Djordje Nesic sang, and played, the first recording.

I discovered this Marcus Argentarius poem while writing the libretto for Lysistrata; it had no place in that opera, but its exuberant fatalism stayed with me, so I leapt at the chance to score it for SATB choir and piano when Harold Rosenbaum and his New York Virtuoso Singers invited me to join his 25 X 25 anniversary recording.

Drawing on the Gnostic gospels, the canonical gospels, and fifty years of New Testament scholarship, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene reimagines the New Testament through the eyes of its lone substantial female character.

Orchestral piece written for the Cabrillo Music Festival to celebrate the great Marin Alsop‘s twentieth year as leader of the festival.

Avow is scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass-baritone, and either piano or chamber orchestra, and is dedicated with respect and gratitude to Jonathan Sheffer: it was introduced by Eos Orchestra in New York in May 1999.

I arranged this for Craig Hella Johnson and his peerless Conspirare when they had the inspired idea to commission new arrangements of some of the African-American spiritual repertoire for concerts in 2010.

August Music is a brief concertino, in three movements, for two flutes and string quartet, which has now subsequently been arranged for two flutes and string orchestra.

A set of five songs for voice, piano and cello, that consider jumper cables, sex, carbohydrates, love, loss, and remembrance; the poets are Linda Pastan, Tennessee Williams, Marge Piercy, Louise Gluck, and Sara Teasdale. The sovereign mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, who introduced my Mary Magdalene to San Francisco, sang the premiere with cellist Jay Campbell and pianist Steven Blier, whose New York Festival of Song introduced the cycle to New York in February 2013: we were all so energized by the experience that we recorded the cycle the next weekend.

For double SATB choir, soprano solo, and piano. Commissioned and introduced by Choral Arts Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, June 2000: Norman Scribner, Music Director.

For unaccompanied SATB choir. Poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Commissioned and introduced by the Gregg Smith Singers in 2009.

Commissioned by The National Symphony Orchestra: introduced by Dotian Levalier, harpist, and The National Symphony at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in June 2007. Leonard Slatkin, conductor.

Music from the opera Little Women for percussion, piano, celesta, and strings. Commissioned by Eclipse Chamber Orchestra: revised version introduced by Eclipse Chamber Orchestra at The George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, VA. in October 2007. Sylvia Alimena, conductor.

Poems by Emily Dickinson: text by Richard Rodriguez. Commissioned by Eclipse Chamber Orchestra: revised version introduced by Emily Pulley, soprano, Richard Kleinfeldt, narrator, and Eclipse Chamber Orchestra at The George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, VA. in May 2007. Sylvia Alimena, conductor.

An arrangement of the central slow movement of Four Angels, for harp and string quintet.

Commissioned by New York City Opera: introduced by New York City Opera as part of their performances of Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess at Lincoln Center in March-April 2006. George Manahan, conductor.

For SSAA choir and piano or chamber ensemble (piano, violoncello, two clarinets.) Poems by Emily Dickinson. Commissioned and introduced by The Young People’s Chorus of New York at the Society for Ethical Culture, New York, N.Y., April 2006; Francisco Nuñez, music director.