Listen (and watch)

Score videos of choral works recorded in 2023 by the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir:

• GRANDMOTHER AS SCYLLA (2023) for a cappella SATB chorus. The poem, by Jeri Theriault, is a meditation on the invisibility of growing old, the way a deepening hunger for human interaction might transform a grandmother into a mythic creature with a “monstrous craving for whatever I could swallow.”
• EARTH DANCE (2019) for SATB chorus and piano. Inspired by the painting “Procession II” by David Driskell,” Jeri Theriault’s poem celebrates the “blister and joy” of plowing, planting, and harvesting, whether by “ashanti in head scarves” or “acadians in flannel.” This choral setting draws out the music already present in the poem’s images and rhythms: “grandmother’s dance-in-the-circle quilt,” “someone’s singing lord,” “feet slapping the rescued ground.”
• I’M NOBODY (2017) for a cappella SSAA women’s chorus. Emily Dickinson’s satiric, saucy poem, a dig at the pomposity of polite society, is here given a lively rendition in the spirit of Duke Ellington, with plenty of syncopation, sudden dynamic shifts, and horn-like vocalizations.
• GLASS NIGHT (2015) for soprano solo, SATB chorus, and piano. The poem, by Wesley McNair, is incantatory, a kind of magic spell invoking the spirits of winter to coat the Maine landscape in a thick coat of ice, transforming “moon-coated snow hills” into the “speech of light.” In this setting, sparkling and urgent, the soprano soloist becomes the shaman, with chorus gathered around as the ritual is enacted.
• WHEN THE TREES CAME FOR HER (2015) for soprano solo, SATB chorus, and piano. Wesley McNair’s hair-raising poem transforms the peace of a back-country Maine winter landscape into something malevolent, where we find a troubled woman driving through the dark on “the wrong route, the one with the ice bone down the center and no signs, even for the sharp curve she barely came out of.” The musical setting enters into the cold terror of this scene, urgent, fast, off-kilter, dizzying, amplified with whispers and other murmurings from the chorus.

Videos of two marimba pieces, recorded April 2017 at Boston Conservatory at Berklee by students of Nancy Zeltsman, including Ryan Aguilar and Daniel Hallett, pictured above:

• EVENING’S SABRES for marimba quartet, commissioned by the American Composers Alliance and Town Hall (premiered in 1990 in New York by the Manhattan Marimba Quartet), performed here by Daniel Hallett, William Land, Joanna Chen, and Ryan Aguilar.
• SUSURRUS for solo marimba, performed by Daniel Hallett.

Animated videos of two experimental pieces:

• ALL THE DESANCTIFIED PLACES, a setting for speaking string trio of the first part of Robert Bringhurst’s magnificent poem New World Suite No. 3. In this video, the text is animated in sync with its rhythmic declamation. Unpeopled black and white photos provide the backdrop. Demo MIDI recording made with Sibelius and NotePerformer software, and overdubbed voice.
• DEM ESCHART VON BRUNSWICK GEWIDMET for eight pianos in separate rooms. This recording of the live performance features a dreamily animated score, in keeping with the mood of the music, a collage of Beethoven fragments and coded melodic tributes to the composer Elliott Schwartz. (Here are three of the pianists at the afternoon rehearsal: Gulimina Mahamuti, Chiharu Naruse, and George Lopez.)

Live recordings with synced scores:

• ASA NISI MASA for violin and piano. October 2020 recording by violinist Karen Dekker and pianist Steven Berg for Shelter Music, an initiative by the American Composers Alliance to create promotional recordings of ACA music by professional musicians sheltering at home during the coronavirus.
• OCTOBER for solo piano. Performance by Melsen Carlsburg from the Navona CD, Pendulum.
• PENUMBRA for violin, clarinet, and piano, performed by Mary Jo Carlsen, Thomas Parchman, and James Parakilas.
• FAR PSALTERIES OF SUMMER for violin, cello, marimba, and piano, premiered at the Ernest Bloch Music Festival Composers’ Symposium, Newport, Oregon, 2003.
• LANDSCAPE WITH LADYSLIPPER for seven players (fl, ob, cl, vn, va, vc, db), commissioned by Sebago-Long Lake Region Chamber Music Festival in celebration of its 25th anniversary, 1997. Live recording of premiere.

Demo MIDI recordings (Sibelius and NotePerformer software) with synced scores:

• FANTAZY a6 (2020) for six-part trombone choir.
• ADRIFT AMONG THE WILLOWS (2020) for socially-distanced quartet of clarinet, violin, viola, and cello. The musicians speak excerpts from the poetry of Jan Zwicky. (Overdubbed voice in this recording.)
• COOL MOSSES DEEP (2019) for flute octet.
• GAMBANGAN (2019) for solo marimba.
• MAINE TRAVELER’S ADVISORY (1997) for seven players (fl, cl, bsn, tbn, mar, vn, db).

Videos with Phil as cellist or speaker:

• ELEGY FOR AL for solo cello, written and played in memory of Alfred Bersbach, December 2020.
• MOVING DAY for cello and piano, written for my son Eric’s wedding to Melanie Knight, September 2016, performed by me and my other son Melsen Carlsburg, filmed earlier in the day at rehearsal.
• ALAIN’S FIRST DECLARATION, an ekphrastic poem after Mary Cassatt’s “Hélène is Restless,” written for the Portland Museum’s ArtWord event during National Poetry Month, April 2017.
• ALL THE DESANCTIFIED PLACES for speaking string trio, a setting of the first part of Robert Bringhurst’s contrapuntal poem New World Suite No 3, performed by violinist Tracey Jasas-Hardel, violist Bryan Brash, and me on cello, as part of the Back Cove Contemporary Music Festival, April 2017.

Vocal works on my Soundcloud page:

• FAIR SEED-TIME for tenor and orchestra (texts from Wordsworth’s Prelude)
• THE GARDEN for chorus, 2 pianos, 2 percussionists (texts by Lee Sharkey)
• FOUR JOURNEYS IN MAINE for soprano and orchestra (texts by Wesley McNair)
• IMPLICATIONS OF MELISSA, chamber opera on an original libretto
• THREE SONGS (texts by Susan Carlsen, e.e. cummings, and Robert Herrick)