Woodwind

Written for Baritone Saxophone and Piano, this is a challening work that is most suited for a college age student. 

Program notes from the composer:

Just as Chagall mixed landscapes, characters, and creatures into a surreal concoction in his paintings, Chagallian Scenes does so in music. So we might start with a march only to dissolve into a waltz with flashes of dissonance morphing into cacophony, or we might settle comfortably into a key when suddenly it veers into an unrelated other. The movements are named after the pictures that inspired them.

The first movement, Promenade, or  Der Spaziergang, opens with cheery walking music appropriate for a man and his lovely lady out for a stroll. But the mood soon  edges into whole tone surrealism reflecting that the pink frocked lady is floating, held down to earth only by the grasp of her companion.

The music for The Wandering Jew  is influenced by the diverse dwellings of the Jewish diaspora, ranging from the Moorish influence of the Andalusia to the Klesmer of New York. 

The third movement, Au Dessus de la Ville (Over the town) has drifting rhythm, like the drifting figures over the town. The scene is dreamy and surrealistic with the music moving in and out of sync.

I And the Village, considered Chagall's most famous painting, cuts from one scene to another as if remembering a lifetime. The man with the scythe  trudges along throughout, listening to the sounds of the village: a goat bleating, a Klesmer violinist, the bells of the Russian Orthodox Church… it is a tapestry of joy and tragedy, hard labor and festive dance.

3 Clarinets and Bass Clarinet

This work by Italian composer Sergio Brusca, entitled Chanson ’98, is a lively and quick Clarinet Quartet in Swing Tempo. It features syncopated rhythmic figures throughout and contains a lengthy and technically challenging solo for the first clarinet.

with Piano

Chiaroscuro was composed in 2007. Its title refers to the contrasting effects of light and shade in painting, a technique usually associated with such seventeenth-century artists as Caravaggio and Rembrandt. The work is dedicated to Larry Van Oyen, my good friend and current saxophone teacher and Director of Bands at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. When I forwarded the score to Larry, I shared these comments with him: “In many ways, this is my most personal piece. It probably comes closest to expressing the unsettled quality of my soul at this juncture in life – a jumble of sorrows and hopes, worries and faith.”

– Whitney Prince

with Piano

James Grant says, ” Slow jazz… What musical language could celebrate more appropriately the lyrical, sensuous, expressive character of the bassoon? The three Chocolates, in this version for bassoon and piano, are torch songs in the tradition of the passionate, tuneful ballads of the American 40s and 50s. The first two Chocolates, Valentine and Bittersweet, offer soulful narratives that speak to devotion, poignancy, romance, uncertainty, longing. The third Chocolate, Triple Mocha Indulgence, is slightly less soul-searching, more ebullient, and progressively becomes more animated (a sugar high, perhaps?) right up to its raucous close. Chocolates was commissioned and premiered in 1998 by violist Michelle LaCourse, to whom this music is dedicated.”

Chocolates can be heard on bassoonist Mary Stuckemeyer’s CD of the same title, published through Potenza Music.

with Piano

Slow jazz…. What musical language could celebrate more appropriately the lyrical, sensuous, expressive character of the clarinet? The three Chocolates, in this version for clarinet and piano, are torch songs in the tradition of the passionate, tuneful ballads of the American ‘40s and ‘50s.

Originally composed for viola, the first two Chocolates, “Valentine” and “Bittersweet,” offer soulful narratives that speak to devotion, poignancy, romance, uncertainty, longing. The third Chocolate, “Triple Mocha Indulgence,” is slightly less soul-searching, more ebullient, and progressively becomes animated (a sugar high, perhaps?) right up to its raucous close.

Chocolates was commissioned and premiered in 1998 by violist Michelle LaCourse, to whom this music is dedicated.