Works

The eleventh episode in Ulysses is James Joyce’s verbal equivalent of musical counterpoint. He has called this episode a “fuga per canonem,” assigning to each character the role of a musical line. Actual music is quoted and sung by the denizens of a bar in the Ormond Hotel as they gather around the piano.

More Info
 
Opera based on updated Gulliver's Travels

More Info
 
More Info

Bridges in an expanded orchestral version.

Bridges

Program Note

The five movements of Bridges are inspired by actual bridges in different parts of the world and organized around a wide variety of cultures. Railroad Trestle Bridge in Galax, Virginia uses the motoric rhythm of a train and the sound of a fiddle and banjo playing country music. Stone Bridge over a Reflecting Pool in Suzhou is based on a traditional Chinese song called Moli Hua or Jasmine Flower. The Golden Gate Bridge recalls the folk music revival of the 1960's and 70's in California, with particular respect paid to the singer Joan Baez, whose haunting songs had a profound effect on me. I have combined her song “All My Trials” with a Chinese folksong called “Liu Yang River” as both reflect the culture of the Bay Area. The Brooklyn Bridge has a particularly happy coincidence. I wanted this bridge to partake of the vibrant be-bop era in New York City. In researching be-bop melodies, I came across a standard favored by many jazz musicians, “I Got Rhythm” by George Gershwin. Using only the harmonic chord changes to this tune, players crafted seemingly endless improvisations. As the song was written in the typical AABA song form, the “B” section was referred to as the “bridge”. Here was the ideal confluence of the many meanings of the word “bridge”, and I leaped at the opportunity to bring them all together. The fifth movement is The Mackinac Bridge, based on the folksong “The Water is Wide” because the bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere and spans a wide expanse of water over the straits of Mackinac, connecting Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.

 

 

More Info
 

"El Yunque" performed by the Seattle Collaborative"El Yunqu" is inspired by the sounds of the tropical rain forest in Puerto Rico.

More Info
 
As part of the Houston Symphony's sesquicentennial celebration, and based on the folksong 'Deep in the Heart of Texas,' Ringing fragments the familiar melody in an Ives-like mosaic.
More Info
 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: In Tune with Justice
Program Note
Because Ruth Bader Ginsberg is a towering figure and an inspiration to me, I wanted to write a work that added music to her forceful words. Knowing that she loved opera, this was a natural. I chose Mozart’s overture to “The Marriage of Figaro” as the basis for my composition, borrowing freely and adapting his energetic pulse, so appropriate to RBG’s own boundless energy. My music weaves in and out of Mozart’s themes, beginning with a fast-paced overture and continuing with underscoring and interludes that highlight RBG’s words. I added quotes from “America the Beautiful” and “The Star Spangled Banner” to this mixture, expressing the patriotic pride that RBG felt towards this country. Jane Vial Jaffe has created a compact script, framing RBG’s words with her own original narrative and bringing into relief the struggle and triumph central to the story.

More Info

Victoria Bond's "Thinking like a Mountain" for narrator and orchestra, is based on an essay by American environmentalist Aldo Leopold. It tells how Leopold experienced an epiphany and converted from a hunter who shot wolves to someone whose life's work became protecting them and their habitat. The composition was commissioned by the Shanghai Symphony and performed and recorded by that orchestra.

More Info
 

Thinking Like A Mountain

The essay Thinking Like A Mountain crystallizes Aldo Leopold’s philosophy about the balance of nature and our ethical relationship towards its preservation. It is the personal confession of one who momentarily upset that balance and whose remorse became the catalyst which prompted him to become a leader in the environmental movement.

In setting this powerful essay, I wanted to paint a portrait of the mountain. I was fascinated by the overlapping life cycles of the many elements which shared the mountain’s space, from the slow progression of the rocks to the flickering instant of the insects. They simultaneously inhabited the same world and I saw a parallel in the music, where multiple tempos and melodic lines can co-exist. Rather than illustrating the literal sound effects of nature, this music seeks to give voice to an inner natural order built on the primary elements of acoustics as described by Pythagoras. At this level, mathematics and the natural order have much in common with the structure of mountains.

This composition was commissioned by a consortium including Explore Park in Virginia, The Billings Symphony in Montana, The Elgin Symphony in Illinois and the Shanghai Symphony in China.

_____Victoria Bond

 

More Info
 
More Info
 
More Info
 
Using Jonathan Swift’s satiric essay as text, Bond weaves fragments of familiar nursery songs together to produce a potent blend of humor and horror.
More Info
 
Using the words from a letter written in 1927 about the relationship of art to science, the song takes its musical form from the highly-structured pattern of Einstein's thoughts.
More Info
 

Protone Music; ASCAP
baritone-pno

From an Antique Land - Song Cycle on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Gerard Manley Hopkins

More Info
 
A Jewish prayer that emphasizes the importance of names.
More Info
 
There is also a great deal of dramatic and dynamic contrast. It is rhythmically complex for both performers and has frequent meter changes. The clever use of vocal and percussive effects creates a phantasmagorical work, difficult to interpret but well worth the effort." -New Directions
More Info
 
The text comes from the Brer Rabbit stories collected by Joel Chandler Harris as part of his Uncle Remus' African American folk tales.
More Info
 
More Info
 
Br'er Rabbit is invited to perform on his banjo at the Wolves' party. Banjo, fiddle and double bass
More Info
 
A story for children based on a Mayan folktale that tells how Coyote steals corn from all the other animals and how they work together as a team to get it back.
More Info
 
A story for children based on a Chinese folktale about a young girl who saves the villagers from dying of thirst. She selflessly offers to sacrifice herself to the god of the mountain so that her village will be provided with water. At the last moment she is magically rescued by an old man in green.
More Info
 
A reduced orchestration and abbreviated version of the original Frog Prince, this is suitable for performances with Peter and the Wolf.
More Info
 
A woodwind quintet version of the original Frog Prince.
More Info
 
narrator and orchestra
More Info
 
A musical fable for narrator and chamber ensemble.
More Info
 
A musical fable for narrator and orchestra.
More Info
 
More Info
 
More Info
Total: 118 (Viewing: 91–118)