Tenor/soprano, piano
Duration: c. 2 minutes
Medieval Irish text. Having heard Samuel Barber’s setting of “The Crucifixion,” I decided to do my own setting.
Baritone, piano
Duration: c. 2 minutes
Tennyson, poem. Premiered by baritone-bass, Ken Thomson, 1990. Not unlike Charles Ives’ “Like a Sick Eagle,” the melodic line follows the eagle’s flight; in this short piece, we hear and see, the bird’s deliberate and precise fall from his high perch to the target below.
Soprano, piano
Duration: c. 4:30 minutes
This is one of Hopkins’ earliest poems; it, like the The Windhover and The Caged Skylark, uses the image of a bird as metaphor and reveals a mystical and spiritual connection to these beautiful creatures. (Audio features Nancy Ellen Ogle, soprano, Ginger Hwalek, piano.)
Bass-Baritone, piano, cello
Duration: c. 5 minutes
W. B. Yeats, poem. Premiered at NACUSA’s “Spring Counterpoint!” at Christ & St. Stephan’s Church, NYC, 2011 by Mark Kaczmarczyk, bass-baritone, Felice Kuan, cello, Flora Kuan, piano.
Soprano/tenor, piano
Duration: c. 4 minutes
Edward Hirsch, poem. Premiered by Clarissa Lyons, soprano, and Shun-Yahg Lee, piano, “Voices Up: New Poems Set to Music” at Fordham University, 2011; performances by Gregory Wiest and Sara Paar, 2012. (Audio excerpt is from the premiere performance.)
Tenor or soprano, piano, clarinet
Duration: c. 5-6 minutes
Oscar Wilde, poet. Written in memory of Michael Fallacaro, a fine clarinetist and former student who perished in a car crash when he was a senior in college. Also performed at my retirement concert by Manhattanville alumnae. (Audio features Colleen Gallagher, soprano; Lauren DelRe, clarinet; Jennifer Castellano, piano.)
Soprano, piano
Duration: c. 2:30 minutes
Text from a poem written by 20th–century Irish poet (Also part of the I Am Ireland song cycle). (Audio features Victoria Jessie, soprano; Mark Cherry, piano.)
Bass-Baritone, piano
Duration: c. 3 minutes
John Masefield, text. This is the first art song that I wrote; I was a student at Fontbonne College in St. Louis. What a thrill to hear it sung by a college friend!
Tenor, bassoon, woodblocks
Duration: c. 2 minutes
Marcella Holloway, poem. Comical setting of a poem criticizing pigeons who cannot read the sign that tells them to stay off the grass!
Bass-baritone, piano
Duration: c. 2 minutes
This work was commissioned by Melody Owens, a member of the Cecilia Chorus of New York. She was the winning bidder for a composition which I donated to the fund-raising auction of the Chorus. Melody chose the text, a few lines from Shakespeare’s Gentlemen of Verona; she intends to give it to a friend who is a bass-baritone who will perform it in concert.
2022 © Mary Ann Joyce All Rights Reserved.