Nonsense Songs
Nonsense Songs
Year: 2023-2024
Duration: ~4:00
Instrumentation: Soprano, clarinet in b-flat, and piano
Texts by J. Davis, Aaron N. Price, and Gelett Burgess
Pricing and purchase link coming soon!
Movements:
Nonsense Songs has three movements:
i. The Sun
ii. Second Movement
iii. Purple Cow
Program Note:
Nonsense Songs (2023-2024) was commissioned by Haven Trio (Lindsay Kesselman, soprano; Kimberly Cole Luevano, clarinet; Midori Koga, piano), known to frequently perform beautiful, profoundly emotional pieces. The trio thus commissioned me to compose this piece as a more light-hearted, joyous piece for their repertoire.
The piece features three texts: “The Sun” by J. Davis, “Second Movement” by Aaron N. Price (yours truly), and “The Purple Cow” by Gelett Burgess. I found the texts for “The Sun” and “The Purple Cow” in a book titled
“A Nonsense Anthology” collected by Carol Wells in 1910, which inspired the title of the piece. I wrote the text for “Second Movement” out of the whimsical frustration of trying to find a companion text for the other two poems and finding a way to shift the mood between them.
Haven Trio exquisitely premiered Nonsense Songs during their Connecticut Summerfest Artist Residency Showcase Concert on June 8, 2024, at Berkman Recital Hall (The Hartt School, University of Hartford) in West Hartford, CT, USA.