Purchase Printed Music

For tenor (range B flat2 to C5) and piano; about 5 ½ minutes; words by Terrence Chin-Loy

Commissioned in 2021 by tenor Eric Ferring, No Choice But Love is set to text by Terrence Chin-Loy. It celebrates gay relationships and honors the brave efforts of those who’ve fought for the rights of LGBTQ+ people. It is the final selection on Eric Ferring and Madeline Slettedahl’s 2022 recording “No Choice But Love – Songs of the LGBTQ+ Community.”

For medium-high voice (range Eb3 to B4); about 3.10 minutes; set to the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Though written in the early 1800s, the text captures the emotional impact of contemporary hatred and violence.

For soprano voice (range Eb3 to B4); about 2.50 minutes. Set to a passage of prose from Virginias Woolf’s extended essay A Room of One’s Own. A version of this music also appears in “The Wave Rises” for SATB chorus. It explores the experience of overwhelming beauty which encompasses both “laughter” and “anguish.”

For tenor voice (range D2 to A3); about 3 minutes. This song portrays the character of Ichabod Crane in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It reveals Ichabod’s intense, if deluded, love for his would-be girlfriend, Katrina while touching on his fears and rivalries

For mezzo-soprano (range Ab3 to F5); about 3 minutes; set to the poem by Wilfred Owen; premiered by Sasha Cooke in January, 2010 at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

A darkly lyrical song set to Owen’s text which rails against the madness of war. Owen vividly evokes the suffering and death that he witnessed himself as a soldier in World War I. He was killed in action in 1918 one week before the signing of the Armistice which ended the war.

For tenor (range C2 to G3); about 2 ½ minutes; originally from the musical theatre piece entitled “Henry and Company” written for tenor Jerry Hadley; lyric by Ben Moore.

A lively, comic and emotional song about the experience of a young man leaving home for the first time.

For soprano (range B3 to Ab5); about 2 ½ minutes; set to Sappho’s “fragment 94” as translated by Charles Beye.
This deeply emotional piece explores the experience of being abandoned by a cherished lover. It expresses intense grief and loss, as well as love and hatred. Sappho’s poetry was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity and continues to inspire today. Fragment 94 (among the longest fragments) is both searing and tender.

For medium voice (range D4 to F5 or D3 to F4); about 2 minutes; set to the poem by Thomas Hardy.

This song explores the effects of trauma, the kind that can leave you feeling disembodied. It also celebrates the love that can draw you back into the world.

For tenor (range C2 to sustained G3); about 3 minutes; words by Nahma Sandrow; based on the journals of Lewis and Clark.

An energetic, soaring and passionate song about burgeoning love. Judith River, located in central Montana, was first named the Bighorn by Meriwether Lewis. In May 1805 his companion William Clark renamed it in honor of a young woman from Virginia he hoped would marry him one day. The two, in fact, were married in 1808.

For medium low voice (range D4 to G5 or D3 to G4); about 2 minutes; lyric by Ben Moore.

A tender, heartfelt ballad celebrating the power of love on one’s wedding day.

For high mezzo or high baritone (range A3 to A5 or A2 to A4); about 2 ½ minutes. Lyric by Ben Moore. Also available for SATB chorus upon request.

A holiday song that is about the longing to recapture the joy and innocence of a Christmas past. The piece begins quietly and builds to a passionate climax.

For baritone (range Bb1 to F#3); about 4 ½ minutes; commissioned by Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute; set to the poem by William Butler Yeats; premiered in August 2015 by baritone Joe Eletto at the Ravinia Festival.
“The Wild Swans at Coole,” part of the 1919 collection of the same name, is one of Yeats’s earliest and most moving testaments to the heartache of living in a rapidly changing world.