Three Epitaphs combines texts by William Carlos Williams, Seikilos, and Emily Dickinson, to create a meditation on transience. Williams depicts an old willow looking back on youth and love, Seikilos mourns his partner's death by offering a few cautionary words on life's brevity, and Dickinson meditates on what is left behind long after we are gone. The music is filled with blowing winds and tolling bells, and each text is a kind of lyrical oasis within a larger musical mediation on loss. The Seikilos text is taken from a musical epitaph that is famous for being the oldest known written composition that exists in its entirety. My setting of an English translation of this simple text re-sets it with a nod to the opening of the melody that contains the musical interval of a rising Perfect 5th.
Instrumentation: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet in Bb, Percussion (Glockenspiel, Vibraphone, Triangle), Voice, Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass; or Voice / Violin, Piano, Percussion (Glockenspiel, Vibraphone, Triangle), Violin, Viola, Cello; Piano-vocal version also available
“...a strong, emerging voice infused with a sophisticated ear and knack for evoking luscious textures and imaginative yet approachable harmonies from the ensemble inspire optimism that this young composer will have much more to say in the coming years.”
