One of my goals was (and is) to present the blues in a "classical" manner.  What is more classical than an orchestra!  I wanted to portray an excited, tight blues band in orchestral terms. Barry Dolins, retired CEO and founder of the Chicago Blues Festival, remarked that "it demonstrates the best in shuffle over the last thirty years!"

I was born to music, my brother tells me. At age 4 I began singing and noodling at the piano. I got a ukulele and wrote my first songs at age10. From then on it has been a veritable parade of instruments and styles that has been always the tenor of my life.

American music is so powerful and hard, yet can be so sweet and loving. It can make you dance, sleep, drink, any number of things. But it is a music in and to itself. Other countries have borrowed, and Americana has done its share of borrowing as well.

In this work I tried to create a celebration ... a montage.... of  various styles of Americana. The piece may not be perfect but I do believe it proudly sings and hails much of the music of America, which itself is perfect only in its own right!

1,459 views May 10, 2018

This is my orchestral tribute to The Parkland Five -- in remembrance of the horrendous Parkland massacre.

It is intended to be a dedication to the survivors' bravery and commitment -- as we remember and mourn the seventeen slain students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida; February 14, 2018. This is a “programmatic work” intended to recreate my musical vision of the event, separated into six movements: I. Prologue and Routine / II. The Classroom / III. Heinous Monster / IV. Dead Silence / V. Endless Grief / VI. MSD!: March For Our Lives. What is not heard in this replication is the chant that the orchestra players will shout in the last movement : “MSD!…. MSD STRONG!, a rallying call of the school’s initials shouted to and from the groups of students who were marching.

America is rocked by its surplus of guns, and the scarcity of laws to prevent catastrophes such as this.   ...... .......the visions and cries of grieving parents and friends are as viciously sad as they are "other worldly"......and yet... it is our world, our country... sadly.....

This work is a memorialization of the hideous child massacre in Uvalde, Texas; 2022— of lives cut tragically short. This, a song of despair, anger, and lingering sadness at such young lives taken.... as well as a wish for comfort to all survivors, parents, friends, siblings, uncles and aunts, teachers, and all others who will forever miss the departed —- the senselessly slaughtered — as well as to all the many others worldwide— who find it too terrible to forget. Nineteen children and two educators were killed at Robb Elementary School on May 24 2022, in the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

 Symphony No.1 is my longest work; nearly 40 minutes in duration.

The Coda is lengthy but represents everything I had been feeling and thinking for months.

After composing I wrote the following:

It has been a shocking stretch of time for us in America, and for our planet. Not to feel this is not to have been paying attention. The feeling of being on a treacherous precipice, and the hope that some force of good would await to deliver us from what seemed to be an inescapable conclusion is what made me choose the orchestra for expression.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was my most - listened-to work of 2023! 

I was sitting outdoors at a coffee house in my Mt Vernon neighborhood , working on  the score of a new work for woodwinds. A fellow came by and asked about the piece. Turns out, he was Andrew Balio, the principal trumpet in the Baltimore Symphony. He wanted to see more of my music, and came by my apartment to do just that. He commissioned me to compose a work for him and his friend David DePeters, who was at the time a percussionist with the New York Philharmonic. We came to an agreement, and I began working on the piece. The two comments I remember were Andy saying it was the hardest piece he ever played, and David sharing that people were coming into his practice room wanting to know the piece he was working on! ( I immediately knew what section it was!) I offered to change parts of the work for either of them, but  they insisted that it be played exactly how I conceived it. 

The story behind this work is pure music :  I heard the combination of Clarinet, Marimba, and Cello in my "mind's ear," and began composing.

A few years ago, I was on my way to a music festival, and --as always-- I had brought my special pencils and blank manuscript paper (of various sizes)...to jot down some ideas. On the plane, I began sketching some ideas, and the concept of a "vigorous debate" came to my mind. On the plane -ride back home I had already finished the duet I was to name Antics for Oboe and Clarinet.  It was great fun composing this piece, and on the return flight I was thrilled to see a young lady onboard carrying a clarinet case! Turns out, she was a student at Eastman, and before too long she was looking through the  riddled score.  She said it was too difficult for her, which was disappointing; but I was not giving up.

The cellist, Kristin Ostling is a longtime member of the Baltimore Symphony. I was happy to have her premiere and record this work.  Unlike many classical performing artists, she "gets" the blues, and is happy to play it! 

She premiered this work at  An Die Musik , a venue in Baltimore in walking distance from my apartment  that features classical and jazz performances. Kristin invited me to choose the program, which was gracious of her and very exciting, because we enlisted the talents of a pianist that Kristin performed with to play one of my favorites:  Brahms' E minor Sonata for Violoncello and Piano. I also chose a Bach  unaccompanied cello sonata. Hearing my favorite pieces along with a very successful premiere of my work made a night I won't forget!

Being a self-taught guitarist from age 15 to age 26, it is to this day "my instrument."  I play folk, blues, and some jazz on it, and was a professional folk singer throughout the 1960's. As I became overcome by a desire to compose classical music, I wondered if I could join disparate techniques such as blues and atonal music. That was the catalyst to this work.

This work was dedicated to a girl named Anna...architecht of a promising relationships that was never to be...a budding love gone awry. You will hear her name throughout.......

It is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, and harp-- all successfully sequenced by award-winner Goeff Knorr.

I was working on my tenth string quartet when I kept hearing a high-pitched wind instrument in my mind's ear.  After a while, I decided to re-conceive the work with clarinet added, and that was the answer. I got a great response to this work.

This was my first nonet.... a great experience to have a near-orchestral blend while being able to exploit the solos of the various instruments.

One of my works that just seemed to flow..... like water....

I composed my second nonet simply  because I enjoyed creating my first ! I wanted to revisit that ensemble with more of my thoughts. It is a wonderful group of instruments; one that offers tints and hues not found anywhere else .

One of my works that I can say just composed itself.......

I conceived this piece to present various thematic ideas "from the darkness."

It is one of the few works in which I use piano.

I grew up in a suburb of Baltimore, a neighborhood where new houses were being built, and there were few kids to play with.  Directly across from our house was a stream, which proved an endless fascination for me.  I can still close my eyes and see the water riding above and between the rocks of all sizes.. teasing the banks as it rose and fell.  It was a perfect setting for me and a friend to sit for hours and play music on our guitars, autoharps, and banjos.  And so, many years later, I decided to honor my memory with my music.

When I was a young teenager, I was besotted by folk music, always striving to get to the most authentic performances, and then duplicate the music on my guitar, banjo, autoharp, harmonica, and any other instrument at hand that could accompany my vocals. The genre of music that was most exciting to me was "Old Time" or "Old Timey" music ( the genre that predated bluegrass). I loved the New Lost City Ramblers and through them the Skillet Lickers and other such groups that played and recorded music in the 1920's and 30's. The harmonies were infectious and the instrumentation was always a driving force. All this was before I "found" blues and jazz, and way before I had ever heard ANY classical music!  Much later in life I felt a  need to "consecrate" this music in the new techniques that I had learned in my classical training.  To my knowledge this had never been done before or after.  It is one of the things that I am glad I did!

This piece is a dedication to South Padre Island, a barrier island along the Texas Gulf coast.  It is a very special place-- if you can find the times when it is less visited by tourists.  During those times one can be totally alone on the dunes, with the Laguna Madre Bay on one side  and the Gulf of Mexico on the other.  I was regulating my days so as to be with the sunrise on one side, and the sunset on the other.  It is known as "a tropical oasis located off the southern tip of Texas."