Music When Soft Voices Die

In 2024, I was selected to participate in Choral Arts Initiative’s PREMIERE|Project Festival as a Composition Fellow. The experience culminated in the premiere of my piece, “There is sweet music here.” After sharing that Edward Elgar’s setting was a big inspiration in that piece, a friend who attended the premiere suggested I set more reflections of classic English part songs. My setting of “Music when Soft Voices Die” is a reflection on Frank Bridge’s setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s text. The frequent meter and tempo changes combined with the rapidly shifting tonal center signifies an individual living with Alzheimer’s disease: remembering things a certain way, losing those memories, and returning to them in a different fashion. The piece is the third of a five-movement cycle, English Vignettes; and is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather.