I Am Because We Are

Gigue-Pavane
Galliarde-Jazz Odyssey

Zac Selissen, guitar

I Will Sing of Your Love, When Will You Come To Me?

David Tanenbaum, conductor
Brittany Hicks, soprano
Tracy Goodwin, flute
Devin Hinzo, oboe
Ricki Nelson, clarinet
Sarah Gagnon, horn
Jim Onstott, bassoon
Stefan Cwik, bass guitar
Iskandar, percussion

Cervantes Suite

II. Cervantes monta a Rocinante por sus sueños
(Arch form-Galóp) Cervantes Rides Rocinante Through His Dreams

Guy Powell, guitar
V. Cervantes da la espada a los cueros de vino
(Jácaras) Cervantes Puts the Wineskins to the Sword

Brendan Evans, guitar

String Quartet

II. Blues Had, Blues Gone Away

Daniel Jang, violin
Midori Nakayama, violin
Deanna Said, viola
Adaiha Macadam-Somer, cello

Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters

David Conte, conductor

Soprano: Minna Choi, Brooke Munoz, Sarah Young, Sharon Suh, Maria Haller, Amanda Pugh
Alto: Gwen Buttemer, Tracy Goodwin, Kyung Hee Cho, Sarah Stiles, Xiyan Wang, Laura Bergmann
Tenor: Alain Chiu, Devin Farney, Joshua Saulle, Liam Staskawicz, Andrew Vernon, Winton White
Bass: Andrew Cadima, Ilya Demutsky, Roberto Kalb, Steve Kim, Max Stoffregen, Sam Van Diest

-Intermission-

Jiggy Ringy Dingy

Mike Roberts, tenor ukulele
Nokia, cellular telephone

Capricho Manchego

arr. Zac Selissen

Zac Selissen and Mike Roberts, guitars

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Deanna Said, viola
Mike Roberts, oud
Iskandar, percussion

Patchouli, Patchouli

Kathie Longinotti, soprano
Chris "Spoony" Webber, alto
Josh Nadelberg, tenor
John Howland, baritone
Mike Roberts, bass

The Mad Farmer Revolution

Brittany Hicks, soprano
Carl Pantle, piano
Mike Roberts, banjo uke
Tigran Nersissian, bass
Brad Harbidge, drums

I Will Go to Sow the Seed

Sara Williams, alto
Josh Nadelberg, tenor
Tony Jurado, alto saxophone
Mike Roberts, guitar and vox
Cheyenne Henderson, piano
Spoony, bass guitar and vox
Brad Harbidge, drums

Encore: Life in Kind

Sara Williams, alto
Josh Nadelberg, tenor
Tony Jurado, alto saxophone
Mike Roberts, guitar and vox
Cheyenne Henderson, piano
Spoony, bass guitar and vox
Brad Harbidge, drums

Program Notes

I Am Because We Are

My good friends Scott Hendrickson and Jenny Heller honored me with a request to write and perform the music for their wedding, which took place last summer in Vail, Colorado. My goal was to create music that would reflect both the traditional nature of the ceremony and the decidedly up-to-date personalities of the bride and groom. This is the end result: a Gigue for the wedding party processional; a Pavane for the bridal processional; a Galliarde for the recessional; and a Jazz Odyssey for that post-ceremony melee when everyone has long since stopped paying attention to the music.

I Will Sing of Your Love, When Will You Come to Me?

I began I Will Sing of Your Love/When Will You Come to Me? during the conflict between Israel and Lebanon in the late summer of 2006. Watching the Middle East saddled with misery upon misery, and feeling increasingly depressed and helpless myself, I tried—however feebly—to give voice to that suffering. The music for this piece was inspired by Qawwali—music of Sufi mystics—whose cornerstone is a passionate and highly virtuosic style of vocal improvisation. With Israel and Lebanon hurling rockets at each other, I could imagine no better medium for an Old Testament text than this transcendent Muslim music.

Cervantes Suite

True story: I called Brian Stone to ask if he would perform one of the seven movements of the suite at this recital—specifically, the fifth movement Jácaras, the one that I played at my January 25 recital. He agreed, and when we got together a few weeks later for a run-through, he pulled out the second movement—the one that Guy (Powell) played at the January 25 recital. We laughed, then we were both kind of sad for a few minutes, then I realized something interesting: the piece I had asked him to learn was chronologically the last movement I composed for the suite (in 2007), and the one he actually learned was the first one (way back in summer 2004). Bookends. How nice and tidy. Thankfully, Brendan Evans stepped up to complete the pair.

String Quartet

For years, my esteemed teacher David Garner has been trying to get me to write an "academic" piece. I decided that for my last SFCM project, I'd take him up on it—in my own oddball fashion—and set about writing a funk string quartet on an eleven-tone pitch set. The result was a sour harmonic mush that made both of us wrinkle our noses. Yet there was something genuinely funky inside, screaming to get out. "Forget the academic thing," David said. "Write your funk string quartet." But by then, I was tied in knots. So I sought refuge in this movement instead, finding a kind of catharsis through my more familiar and visceral method of guitar tinkering and singing. I'd hoped to make quick work of it and return to the first movement, but did you know that arranging even simple ideas for string quartet is really hard? As of this writing, I am still in the thick of it. Hope it turns out okay...

Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters

Technically this was written for the SFCM Choral Competition, but really it was written for my wife Mindy. My original idea for the choral project was to set a page from my renter's insurance policy (you know, a comedy number). Then Mindy and I had an unexpected and difficult loss in our family, and suddenly comedy was the furthest thing from my mind. Thumbing through the Bible, I came upon this passage from Ecclesiastes. It spoke to me powerfully about the virtue of accepting loss as a natural and even beautiful part of life. Clouds empty, trees fall; only God knows why. Since I'm 30 now, old and wise, I'll venture a worldly observation: to feel something deeply—I mean all the way down, deep enough to make every cell in your body thrum and cry—this is a rare thing. And when I finally yielded wholly and truly to that sadness, there was a strange kind of joy in it. It happened during the two weeks I wrote the piece. Maybe you can hear it.

-Intermission-

Jiggy Ringy Dingy

My entry for the composition department's Ring Tone Competition. Our task: compose and record a less-than-30-second ringtone for the winner of a KDFC Classical radio contest. Since the winner liked Elizabethan dances, I made it a bit jiggy. Since cell phone speakers are tiny, I wrote it for a tiny instrument. And I tried to phrase it like a phone. Who knew: phones have phrasing!

Capricho Manchego

This is a Jácaras—a scalawag's dance native to Spain—that I originally composed as a solo piece for inclusion in the Cervantes Suite. Soon after its completion, however, I realized it wasn't remotely right for the Suite. In my attempt at creating a seventh Modern-Mike-Meets-Reimagined-Spanish-Renaissance piece, I had essentially birthed a Spanish folk dance—more or less right on the nose. I call it Capricho Manchego partly in honor of Don Quijote (who, of course, hails from La Mancha), and partly because—I'll admit—it's a little bit cheeseball. It's my love letter to Spain.

My thanks to Zac for arranging it for our guitar duo and, in so doing, making this simple tune far cooler.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Written for the 2007 Viola Project, this was a collaboration with violist Susan Talamini, who brought her extensive background in Arabic music ornamentation and improvisation. (Susan has since left SFCM for a career in medicine; my thanks to Deanna for taking on the challenge!) The piece also gave me an excellent excuse to spend valuable grad school time learning how to play my new oud. In addition to the obvious Arabic influence, the form of the piece is inspired by the Italian canzona, which juxtaposes a series of often sharply contrasting sections. And after many weeks of writing in an Arabic headspace, I couldn't resist the urge to bring the piece home to the good ol' USA. Hence the ending, and the title.

Patchouli, Patchouli

Written on a lark in the summer of 2003—with almost two years in Berkeley and three years of boarding school having given me plenty of material to mine—this tune has since become something of a family favorite. Kathie Longinotti—who happens to be my mother-in-law—honored me with a commission to arrange the song for her a cappella quintet, comprised of members of the Pacific Mozart Ensemble in Berkeley. Unfortunately Kathie was the only member available for this concert, so I pulled together this VW Bugfull of clowns instead.

The Mad Farmer Revolution

My entry to last year's SFCM Art Song Competition. I love Wendell Berry, and never more so than when he tells a crazy story like this one. Quirky, mysterious, and altogether magical, The Mad Farmer sucked me right in. I liked it so much that I wrote a version of it for guitar, then for piano, then rewrote the one for guitar, and now this one. Lucky for me, Mr. Berry has plenty more Mad Farmer poems to inspire future tinkering.

I Will Go to Sow the Seed

Believe it or not, the first version of this piece was written for the 2006 Viola Project—for solo viola. Truthfully, though, my strategy was to write a solo instrumental piece with a very vocal quality, so I wrote this tune to a Scottish prayer and then arranged it for viola. That worked out okay, but I've spent these many moons since dreaming of fulfilling the song's true nature: big, awesome band, lots of soulful singers. I'm extremely lucky to be joined tonight by a number of my best musical buddies from collaborations past and present.

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

I Will Sing of Your Love, When Will You Come to Me? From Psalms 101 and 102 (New International Version)

I will sing of your love and your justice;
to you, O Lord, I will sing praise.
...when will you come to me?

I will walk in my house with blameless heart.
I will set before my eyes no vile thing.
...when will you come to me?

Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry...come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
when I call, answer me...

For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
...I am reduced to skin and bones.

...when will you come to me?

I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake...like a bird alone on a roof.
All day long my enemies taunt me...
use my name as a curse.

Hear my prayer, O Lord.

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain...

I will sing of your love and your justice...
Your years go on through all generations.

...when will you come to me?

Cast Thy Bread Upon the Waters Ecclesiastes 11: 1-5

1 Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
2 Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.
3 If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
4 He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.
5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

Patchouli, Patchouli words by the composer

(Chorus)
Patchouli, Patchouli
You smell so sweet
You're rushing to my head (yes, you are)
Patchouli, Patchouli

When I met you, Patchouli
You came with a smile
A smile on a face with a macramé cap
On a girl [boy] named Kyle (oh, sweet Kyle)
And I'll never forget the day you first embraced me
It felt like swimming in the trunk of a tree
Patchouli, Patchouli

I saw you dance in the rain
You laid your body bare
Everybody was staring, laughing aloud
But you didn't care
And I watched you spinning around, green with envy
'Cause I could never be so free
Patchouli, Patchouli

(Chorus)

You lived across the hall
With my good friend Ted
You filled the place with Crosby, Stills and Nash
And the Grateful Dead (Truckin', I got my chips cashed in)
And when test time came around, you threw a party
It was my very best lesson in philosophy
Patchouli, Patchouli

(Chorus)

Well, we've been through a lot together now, Patchouli
We've seen good times and bad
Like that month we slept up in the redwood tree
And on the first day, you dropped your hacky-sack (what a drag)
We've laughed, and we've cried, and to say what I feel inside
Needs more than a single phrase
Oh, how do I love thee, Patchouli?
Let me count the ways:

I like your homemade pants
I like your turquoise ring
I like your ritual Wiccan dance the first day of spring
Ain't nobody better than you at hugging a tree
And it's a marvelous sight to see
Patchouli, Patchouli

(Chorus)

I'm talkin' 'bout Patchouli
Sweet like honey
Sweeter than the sunshine after the rain
I'd like to tell you over and over again
You're rushin' to my head (yes you are)
Patchouli, Patchouli

The Mad Farmer Revolution by Wendell Berry

The mad farmer, the thirsty one,
went dry. When he had time
he threw a visionary high
lonesome on the holy communion wine.
"It is an awesome event
when an earthen man has drunk
his fill of the blood of a god,”
people said, and got out of his way.
He plowed the churchyard, the
minister's wife, three graveyards
and a golf course. In a parking lot
he planted a forest of little pines.
He sanctified the groves,
dancing at night in the oak shades
with goddesses. He led
a field of corn to creep up
and tassel like an Indian tribe
on the courthouse lawn. Pumpkins
ran out to the ends of their vines
to follow him. Ripe plums
and peaches reach into his pockets.
Flowers sprang up in his tracks
everywhere he stepped. And then
his planter's eye fell on
that parson's fair fine lady
again. "O holy plowman," cried she,
"I am all grown up in weeds.
Pray, bring me back into good tilth."
He tilled her carefully
and laid her by, and she
did bring forth others of her kind,
and others, and some more.
They sowed and reaped till all
the countryside was filled
with farmers and their brides sowing
and reaping. When they died
they became two spirits of the woods.

I Will Go to Sow the Seed
adapted from Carmina Gadelica

I will go to sow the seed,
In name of Him who gave it growth;
I will lift it up to the wind,
And throw a gracious handful high.
I will go to sow the seed.

Should a grain fall on a bare rock,
It shall have no soil in which to grow;
As much as falls into the earth,
The dew will bring to fullness.
I will go to sow the seed.

Friday auspicious,
The dew will come down to welcome
Every seed that lay in sleep
From the coming of the cold.

I will go right with the sun,
I will come around with my step;
In the name of Ariel and the Nine,
Gabriel and the Apostles kind.

Friday auspicious,
The dew will come down to welcome
Every seed that lay in sleep
From the coming of the cold...

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Be giving strength and kindly growth
To every thing that is alive,
Till the day of happiness arrive.

I will go to sow the seed.

Listen (click and scroll down)
Buy (Theatrical Version)