1) Overture (See and hear an excerpt)

2) Scherzo

3) Variations

4) Gavotte (See and hear an excerpt)

5) Tarantella (See and hear an excerpt)

“Neoclassic in design, the work takes unexpected Prokofievian shifts on a number of occasions, always leaving the listener alert.”

-- Phillip George in 20th Century Music, October 1998

“The scherzo is lively, sardonic, amusing, and motivically concise... the final tarantella is a strange one indeed, full of mysticism and wildness.”

-- Nancy Bloomer Deussen in 20th Century Music, March 1998

“...skillfully written, ambitious music that transmitted something fresh through old forms... The opening overture displayed imaginative orchestration... A theme and variations movement yielded one idiomatically luscious wind solo after another.”

-- Ken Keuffel Jr. in The Arizona Daily Star, December 1998

“... 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 Seitz, former concertmaster, Bavarian Radio Symphony

2(pic)222 2100 timp str4tet str
10 min 

Description
Tone poem/night music/nocturne evoking the moods and thoughts raised by the passage of twilight into deep night. Following a dramatic sunset for full orchestra, the strings suggest evening breezes while the woodwinds softly improvise the song of crickets and frogs. Emerging stars multiply into the immensity of the stellar panoply with its swirling galaxies. The night bird sings his commentary and serenade throughout.
(See and hear an excerpt)

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

Description
Dramatic, sarcastic rondo/quodlibet featuring a Turkish march and a surprise ending; other tunes that flit in and out of the texture include Haydn’s tune Austria and Home, Sweet Home. In a mischievous, if bittersweet comment on events of the early 21st century, the latter tune is superimposed on the Dies Irae. (See and hear an excerpt)

Reviews & Testimonials

“...the work is a veritable orchestral kaleidoscope, with witty effervescences that are obviously as much fun for the players to perform as for the audience to listen to... It is refreshing to hear such vibrant music that attempts neither to be a pastiche of the past, nor to explore some abstract and abstruse school...but instead stands firmly and unapologetically on its own frank enjoyability.”

-- Edmund Kimbell in 21st Century Music, March 2002

2(pic)2(EH)22 4331(tuba optional) 2perc str
18 min 

Description
Dramatic and atmospheric tone poem inspired by the “Silk Road” and Mars deserts, evoking the feelings of mystery and 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 and hear an excerpt)