Music: Victoria Bond

Text: Jonathan Fink

SATB Chorus.

"Your Voice is Gone"  was commissioned and premiered by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble in 2011 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911. 

I chose a letter from a young woman who worked at the factory to her mother in which she writes of her longing for home. She is lonely in New York without her family and dreams of them being together again. The poem ends with the tragic line “but even in my dreams your voice is gone.”

Concerto for saxophone Quartet and Wind Ensemble

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.

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

The Voices of Air
What does air sound like? Because the trombone is an instrument that depends on air, it made me think about the many voices of air and how we experience it as musicians. The first movement, “Breath,” focuses on the contrast between meditative long, deep breaths and agitated short breaths and how our breathing expresses our emotional states. The second movement, “Airplay,” is an homage to two great jazz trombonists and their recorded works: Urbie Green’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” and Carl Fontana’s “Beautiful Friendship.” I was fascinated with their virtuoso playing and the playful spirit of their music. The title of the third movement, “Floating on Air,” describes a serene and weightless sensation, and the fourth movement, “Breathless,” is just the opposite – turbulent, vigorous and unsettled.
“The Voices of Air” is dedicated to trombonist JoDee Davis, with gratitude to her and to the Curators of the University of Missouri who commissioned this work.
-----Victoria Bond, October 2019

Hanukkah opera “The Miracle of Light” presented by Chamber Opera Chicago December 10th and 17th 2017 at 3:00PM at The Royal George Theater, paired with “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”

The opera is about bullying – a very timely subject that ties together the relationship between contemporary bullying in schools and the bullying of a religious minority by their oppressors 2000 years ago. In “The Miracle of Light” a teenager is bullied by his classmates and in both stories the spirit of hope and forgiveness is symbolized by the light that would not be extinguished.

Soloists: 1 adult soprano, I boy soprano, 1 girl soprano, children's chorus, chamber ensemble. available in chamber orchestra and piano/vocal score.


A Hanukkah Opera premiered by Chamber Opera Chicago in 2016. The story tells of a high school student bullied by his classmates, and a teacher who brings the class together through her lesson on Hanukkah.

Thomas Jefferson's words come alive with Victoria Bond's "Soul of a Nation."

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.