Original Compositions by Michael Kimbell, DMA

Five short, witty pieces for advanced players. “The five short duets were quick-witted and imagistic, partners chasing and tripping each other with sharp trills and nymphic panpipes.” — Adam Broner

Farley Pearce performs all five parts on viols

Two original folk-like melodies and three European folk songs, set for two-part treble

chorus (or two soloists) and piano.

Winner of the 1979 Music Teachers Association of California “Composers Today” Competition.

2222 2230 SATB timp str

Poem by Viktoryia Neverov-Krstic, in commemoration of the sent-down youth of the Chinese cultural revolution

5 November 2016 premiere by the Golden Gate Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (with subtitles)

“On Springfield Mountain there did dwell / A lovely youth, I knew him well-eye-ell.”

These lively variations, based on one of America’s oldest folk songs, retell the story of the young couple who die of snake poison; an ironic twist is given to the ending.

See  Poème  for flute and harp, 2011

Premiered June 2009 in the Kaisersaal, Ottobeuren, Germany and at Salon Linton France, Vienna, Austria by Nándor and Katrina Szederkényi, and performed at the 2011 World Harp Congress in Vancouver, Canada

Musical retelling of a true story related by Canadian author Farley Mowat in his book People of the Deer. An Innuit hunter fails to bring back food; his wife and child perish. Featured on CD “Fantasies & Fugues by Katrina Szederkényi.

Purchase the CD Today:

Premiered by Katrina Szederkényi at the 2016 Szeged Harp Festival and Competition

Nov 30, 2016 Premiere by Katrina Szederkényi at the opening concert of the International Harp Competition, Szeged, Hungary

Purchase from:

Short chamber opera in one scene for three singers and piano;

Libretto by Ross Halper, based on the German play by Hans Sachs.

First performance 11 April 1997 at the Cinnabar Opera Theater, Petaluma, CA:

Kamala Stroup (Wife)

Rosalee Szabo (Auntie)

John Rose (Husband)

Elizabeth Lee (Pianist)

See Sonatina

2(pic)111 1000 1perc str (poems by Emmanuel Williams, recitation with music)

1) Front-line man

2) The Soldier’s Tale

3) Sanctuary

See Chaconne a4 (TrTBB) & Chaconne a6 (TrTrTTBB) by Michael Kimbell

1111 1000 str

(also in a version for viols)

2(pic)222 2120 2perc str

1) Overture

2) Scherzo

3) Variations

4) Gavotte

5) Tarantella

The title Arcadian Symphony refers to that mysterious and rustic paradise, the idyllic classical haunt of poets and musicians where past and future intersect. Accordingly, the symphony uses formal, harmonic and contrapuntal gestures from classical and romantic suites and symphonies and juxtaposes them with a modern sensibility and idiom. The work is in five movements: a central slow Theme and Variations is flanked by two dance-like intermezzi (Scherzo and Gavotte), while the atmospheric Overture and energetic Tarantella frame the Arcadian scene. The music explores the tensions between light and shadow, playfulness and seriousness, fantasy and taut structure. At the same time the work is a contemporary response and reflection on the works of Carl Reinecke (1824-1910), particularly his evocations of fairy tales.

Arcadian Symphony was awarded First Prize by the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra in 1998.

22(EH)22 2230 timp str

1) Pavan

2) Aria

3) Fantasia

((played without pause) wi

The Pavan and Fantasia are based on melodies by John Dowland (1563-1626).
Lacrimae Symphony was premiered in 2023 by the Golden Gate Symphony Orchestra.

2(pic)2(EH)2(Eb)2 4231 3perc str

Rondino Capriccioso (a “small capricious rondo”) was composed in October 2001 and premiered by the CMC Orchestra at the end of that year. This short piece is a tongue-in-cheek quodlibet or assembly of popular tunes that are interwoven throughout its entirety. Most of the melodies can be found in Carl Reinecke’s Musical Kindergarten, an 1890 anthology of short pieces and arrangements for beginning pianists. The primary theme is based on a Turkish march written by the deposed Sultan Mustafa V for his younger brother, the notorious Abdul Hamid II “The Red”. Other tunes that flit in and out of the texture include Haydn’s tune Austria and Home, Sweet Home; the latter is superimposed on the Dies Irae.

Incantation (Desert Landscape)—Countdown/Voyage/Landing—

Exploration (Mars Rover Fugue)—Vision 1: Gardens—

Vision 2: Romance—Vision 3: Destruction—Epilogue

Taklamakán, which means “You go in, you don’t come out,” is the name of the great central Asian desert in Xinjiang (Sinkiang or Chinese Turkestan, north of Tibet). Oasis-cities, many now half-buried in the sand, once lined the fabled “Silk Road” caravan routes along the mountain perimeters of the desert. Throughout central Asia, archaeologists have painstakingly recovered the remains of “lost” civilisations, their languages and ways of life; sadly, many artifacts have been plundered or destroyed in recent wars, not only in central Asia but in Europe, where “rescued” art was bombed. The exploration of other planets arouses in us similar feelings of mystery: the wonder of discovery, along with intimations of the impermanence of natural conditions which might foster life, as well as the fragility inherent in both the means and the results of discovery.

See  Time Does Not Move Above

2pics24(2Eb+2A)2 2000 1perc str

(also in a version for Eb clarinet, bassoon and piano)

See Rondino Scherzando Above

Version A: 2(pic)2(EH)22 2130 2perc str

Version B: 2(pic)1(EH)13(Cbsn) 1110 2perc str

Michael Kimbell’s Golden Gate Barcarolle is a tone poem, celebrating the name of the Golden Gate Symphony Orchestra, that paints a musical picture of the Golden Gate. Over a gentle, rhythmic ocean swell (hence the piece’s title), the music suggests fog and mist, rocks and cliffs, hills and clouds, the great bridge and the city lights beyond. Individual instruments and sections of the orchestra are showcased throughout.

Three 19th century American songs with new piano accompaniments

1) The Spinning Wheel (traditional, reworked into a dramatic art song excerpt

2) America, Commerce and Freedom (sailor’s song by Alexander Reinagle)

3) Do They Think of Me at Home (Charles W. Glover & J.E. Carpenter)

Kritik des Herzens:

“… a contemporary composer, not totally averse to tonality, who knows how to make skillful use of recent innovations. He has a real affinity for Wilhelm Busch’s humor and the lyrical sections are also spot-on.”

— Gerhard S., former concertmaster, Bavarian Radio Symphony

Fantasy Sonata:

“Celestial Encounters is an absolutely beautiful piece making full use of the sonorities and expressive qualities of the piano. Creating sound pictures miraculously…, this original work breaks the mold and creates its own.”

— Molly S., in 20th Century Music

“Nebulae … started out with a rumbling, twirling feeling, just as you might imagine vast columns of stellar dust would be; the sounds of this piece were both minute and gigantic, like the universe itself.”

— Cassandra H. B., in The Hardwick Gazette

Arcadian Symphony:

“The concert … began with Kimbell’s piano rendition of an orchestral Gavotte, drawn from his Arcadian Symphony. Neoclassic in design, the work takes unexpected Prokofievian shifts on a number of occasions, always leaving the listener alert.”

— Phillip G. in 20th Century Music