Two Elegies for chorus a capella

(2012, 1998)

When God Lets My Body Be (2012)—5′
Come to Me (1998)—5′
Recorded on Albany Records (Troy 1748)

Program note

Composed fifteen years apart, the Two Elegies contemplate death from different vantage points. In the e. e. cummings poem When God Lets My Body Be, the speaker sees death as the return of his/her body to the natural world, as an accepting afterlife communion with Nature. Composed in memory of my mother, the work was commissioned by Confluence, Allison Olsson director, and premiere in 2013.

In Come to Me (1998), a setting of Christina Rosetti’s famous poem Echo, the speaker yearns to reach beyond death to his/her departed love through memories and dreams. The work was first performed by the Temple University Concert Choir in 1999 under the direction of Alan Harler. The Two Elegies were recorded by the Temple University Concert Choir, Paul Rardin conductor, for Albany Records [Troy 1748]. Materials available from the composer.

I. When God Lets My Body Be
II. Come to Me