Two Forest Songs (2010) was commissioned by the Rutgers University Choir in honor of Maestro Mark A. Boyle who served as the choir director from 2006-2010. It was premiered on May 3rd, 2010 in Kirkpatrick Chapel, New Brunswick, NJ. The piece was written in collaboration with writer Brett Yates and visual artist Alan Arp who created a sculpture that was unveiled at the premier. The musical work is divided into two contrasting movements. The first movement, "The Road Back," is the longer of the two, and it is also more challenging for the performers, since the main choir (normally comprised of four sections) is frequently split into smaller sub-sections. Throughout this movement the music is often calm and somewhat meditative; in addition, there are frequent, subtle, harmonic changes in the music which represent foliage that is constantly changing colors during the Fall season. The second movement, "The Forest Realm," is a brief musical journey through a dark, mysterious, forest. As the music beings, the singers describe this forest amidst a rapid pulsing accompaniment; in the middle of the movement there is a more reflective chorale-texture representing a transcendental experience often thought to occur in nature; at the end of the movement the faster music returns as the choir leaves this enchanted realm. Overall Yates's poems draw parallels between nature, sound, and sight, and they ask us to consider how our individual and collective experiences as humans can be understood in relation to these complex phenomena. The music tries to augment the rich imagery and metaphor inherent within the text, while combining the natural beauty of the human voice with the reedy, wooden, sound of the English Horn: an aural synthesis of human and natural elements. - D.T.

duration 12'00"
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Catalogue No. 07012

Catalogue No. 07012