for SATB chorus and piano, 2016, duration: 10 minutes.
These three choral compositions came about from conversations David DeVenney and I had following a recital performance of “A Line Of Clouds” by Stephen Ng. “A Line Of Clouds” is one of the songs from ”Six Rumi Songs,” originally for tenor and piano. David offered that the songs might be good candidates for arrangement for SATB chorus.
“See Where It Comes From” has quite a bit of moving lines, even more that could be musically accomplished by voices alone so adding a piano accompaniment seemed appropriate.
More so, a piano accompaniment seemed musically necessary for “Entirely Jewels.” The original song had a stride bass with funky, dissonant, harmonies that seldom agreed with the melodic line. This choral version is substantially changed to reflect a flowing, more consonant, accompaniment.
“A Line Of Clouds” is unaccompanied. The original version had long, slow, chords that complemented the vocal line. In the choral version the chords are celebrated by the elegant texture of mixed voices and the melding of melody line and harmonies is quite natural.