Keyboard Chamber Symphonic Vocal Choral


Keyboard

Variations on an English Carol
Instrumentation: organ
Performer: Eric Choate



This title is available through E.C. Schirmer.
Dans un Jardin de Tournesols
Instrumentation: piano
Performer: Marla Perkins



.pdf score
Preludes
Instrumentation: piano
Performer: Daniel Chang



.pdf score
Promenade and Chorale
Instrumentation: organ
Performer: Benjamin Bachmann



.pdf score
Passacaglia
Instrumentation: piano
Performer: Stephanie Wu



.pdf score


Chamber

String Quartet
i. allegro
ii. litany
iii. intermezzo
iv. scherzo

Performer: Friction Quartet



score .pdf
Amethyst
Performer: One Found Sound



Amethyst is a musical pas de deux. The work features many duets, sections with two contrasting ideas, two larger contrasting sections (marked by different tempi), and an ongoing argument between two key areas (D-major and F-Major). After going back and forth between contrasting sections, the piece finally relaxes in a coda that synthesizes both themes and key areas.


score .pdf
Miniatures for Flute Trio
i. spacious, freely
ii. andante
iii. with exaggerated articulation, almost silly
iv. solemn
v. restrained
vi. molto espressivo
vii. allegro
viii. spacious, freely

Instrumentation: two C flutes; one alto flute
Performer: Areon Flutes



score .pdf
Tango
Instrumentation: string quartet
Performer: Girltet



The sultry tangos of two Argentine Composers, Astor Piazzolla and Osvaldo Golijov, served as models for this piece. I wrote Tango while studying with Narcis Bonet in Paris, a city that has greatly embraced the Argentine tango as well as the rise of modernity in the early 20th century. Tango was premiered on the stage of Salle Franck at La Schola Cantorum, Paris.


score .pdf
A version for full orchestra is is also available.


Symphonic

…and fall
i. Sleep
ii. Neighbors in October
iii. All Hallows
iv. Theme in Yellow
v. November Night

Instrumentation: high voice and chamber orchestra
Performer: Brian Thorsett, tenor; San Francisco Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, Jeffrey Thomas, conductor











Score available soon. The CD can be purchased here, and the whole album can be streamed on Spotify here.
Sonora
Instrumentation: full orchestra (winds in 3s)
Performer: The St. Olaf Orchestra, Mr. Steven Amundson, conductor


Video courtesy St. Olaf College. Used by permission.

The Sonoran Desert is a place of supreme beauty, grandeur, calmness, and intensity.Some of my most transformative moments have been while wandering the Sonoran Desert. Sonora evokes certain feelings, sounds, and images of the desert. Large, complex, sustained sonorities represent the colorful paint-brushed appearance of the desert sky, the wideness of the desert, and the confident command of the Saguaro Cactus which towers over her expansive territory. After some calm expository material, the work becomes more vigorous, being a depiction of not only the quiet intensity of this dry place, but of the psychological intensity of being in a desert, finding oneself surrounded by immense loneliness.


.pdf full score
Windmills
Instrumentation: full band
Performer: The St. Olaf Band; Eric Choate, guest conductor



Windmills is a soft piece that presents short melodic gestures over two swaying sonorities. A sense of subtle movement and expansiveness are a result of repeating these gestures, each time colored slightly differently by moving to distantly related keys. I have drawn from three different works by 20th century American composers: Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, John Corigliano's Fern Hill, and Ingolf Dahl's Sinfonietta: "Notturno Pastoral." These pieces have a simplicity and tasteful lilt to them that remind me of the countryside. I began living in this pastoral sound and found that the musical gestures I had been sketching evoke windmills in their circular motion. At the same time, I was considering how I might acknowledge St. Olaf College. "Windmills" seemed a perfectly fitting title because St. Olaf College has a wind turbine visible from everywhere on campus and is seated beautifully next to a pond in a wheat-colored field. As my piece progressed, it became an expression of my feelings when standing before this grand structure in the idyllic setting.


.pdf full score
Tango
Instrumentation: full orchestra (winds in 3s)
Performer: The St. Olaf Orchestra, Mr. Steven Amundson, conductor



.pdf full score
A version for string quartet is is also available.


Vocal

…and fall
i. Sleep
ii. Neighbors in October
iii. All Hallows
iv. Theme in Yellow
v. November Night

Instrumentation: high voice, cello, and piano
Performer for movements 1,2,4,5: Brian Thorsett, tenor; Emil Miland, 'cello; Richard Masters, piano
Performer for movement 3: Brian Thorsett: tenor; Alan Weinstein, 'cello; Eric Choate, piano

i. Sleep




ii. Neighbors in October




iii. All Hallows




iv. Theme in Yellow




v. November Night



This title is available through E.C. Schirmer.
A version for tenor and chamber orchestra is also available for streaming on Spotify here.
Those Winter Sundays
Instrumentation: high voice and piano
Performers: Brian Thorsett, tenor; John Churchwell, piano



.pdf score
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Instrumentation: high voice, cello, and piano
Performers: Ellen Leslie, soprano; Emil Miland, cello



.pdf score
My Cathedral
Instrumentation: high voice and piano
Performer: Brian Thorsett, tenor; Eric Choate, piano



.pdf score
Charmes
i. Les Grenades
ii. Les Pas
iii. Le Vin Perdu
iv. La Ceinture

Instrumentation: high voice and piano
Performer: Ellen Leslie, soprano; Eric Choate, piano



I discovered the poetry of Paul Valery while studying composition in Paris. I immersed myself in the poetry of the great French Symbolists: Mallarmé, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Valéry. When I discovered Valery's collection Charmes, I knew immediately that I wanted to set portions to music.

Each poem in this collection uses objects and experiences to describe a poet waiting for his inspiration. Very often in French Symbolism the poet chooses words and sounds that have many different meanings, which inform one's interpretation of the poetry. For example, "Les Grenades," the title of the first of this cycle, means both "the pomegranates" and "the grenades." While these are completely different objects, the poem reveals Valéry's implication of both meanings. The poet is awaiting inspiration, which comes in the form of a grenade exploding with ideas, or a pomegranate bursting with creative juices. Similarly, on the surface level, "Les Pas" suggests "footsteps;" however, "pas" is also a word used for negation. This expresses an existential question: was it the footsteps of a lover approaching a vigilant bed, or was it a nonexistence contained only in the mind of the poet? Again this poem is a metaphor for inspiration, now coming to the poet seductively in the night. "Le Vin Perdu" describes a scene in which the poet tosses wine into the sea (for reasons of which he is unsure) and in a trance, watches as the translucent red becomes enveloped in the salty water. "La Ceinture" describes a sash fluttering gracefully in the dim evening's light, which disappears as the night darkens. The double meaning here is "the belt," referring not only to the sash, but the band of light at a sunset.

To underline the double meanings that happen so frequently in these texts, my settings of these texts employ many musical "double meanings." Cross relations (chromatic contradictions between two simultaneously sounding tones) play an important role in the entire work by suggesting not either major or minor sonorities, but both. Likewise, the dialectical argument between key areas, as well as the way I chose to settle in tonalities that synthesize these arguments, suggests multiple intentions and musical meanings. All of these compositional devices exist within a sound world of gestures, harmonic patterns, and styles that allude to music of the great Fin de Siècle French composers, contemporaries of Mr. Valéry, and my own poetic muses: Debussy, Ravel, and Lili Boulanger.

.pdf score
Roethke Songs
i. epidermal macabre
ii. the moment
iii. my papa's waltz

Instrumentation: high voice and piano
Performers: Chelsea Hollow, soprano; Eric Choate, piano



.pdf score


Choral

Keep Watch, Dear Lord
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella

Performer: VOCES8




Performer: Durham Univeristy Chamber Choir, Adam Whitmore, director.



Score available soon. This piece may be used individually, or as part of my larger setting of Compline.
An Order for Compline: St. Mary's Service


Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: Parish Choir of The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin



Beloved, Let Us Love
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: Caritas Chamber Choir, Benedict Preece, conductor





.pdf score
Meeting at Night
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella

.pdf score
Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: Caritas Chamber Choir, Benedict Preece, conductor



.pdf score
Ave Maria
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: San Francisco Boys Chorus




Performer: Parish Choir of The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin, recorded live at St. Luke's Church, SF



.pdf score
O How Amiable Are Thy Dwellings
Instrumentation: unison choir, organ
Performer: Parish Choir of The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin



.pdf score
I Am the True Vine
Instrumentation: SATB choir, organ
Performer: Parish Choir of The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin



.pdf score
Marian Antiphons
i. Alma Redemptoris Mater
ii. Ave Regina Caelorum
iii. Regina Caeli
iv. Salve Regina


Instrumentation: SATB choir, organ

i. Alma Redemptoris Mater

Performer: Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge; Ms. Sarah MacDonald, conductor
(recorded during Evensong on 31 January 2019)




ii. Ave Regina Caelorum

Performer: Parish Choir of The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin




iii. Regina Caeli

Performer: Parish Choir of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin




iv. Salve Regina

Recording forthcoming!

.pdf score
When Love Beckons to You
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: Matt Curtis (Choral Tracks Demo)



.pdf score
A Choral Benediction
Instrumentation: SATB choir, organ

.pdf score
Three Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas
i. Adoro Te Devote
ii. O Salutaris Hostia
iii. Tatnum Ergo

Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella

.pdf score
Now Cheer Our Hearts
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: ad hoc choir; Eric Choate, conductor



This title is available from Augsburg Fortress
Nunc Dimittis
Instrumentation: SATB choir, a cappella
Performer: International Orange Chorale, Mr. Zane Fiala, conductor



.pdf score