The Trouble with the Text (2015)

Scored for soprano, mezzo, baritone, strings, and continuo; about 13:20. $35 for score, parts, demos. This is my comic cantata on an amusing prose poem by my friend Claire Bateman, in which 24 students in a creative writing class make various excuses – all of them lame – for why they didn’t do the assigned reading.  It’s an acute study in verbose teenage rationalization. More or less following the conventions of an early 18th-century chamber cantata, the music resembles the style of George Frideric Handel - on a bad day.  If you like P.D.Q. Bach you will probably like this. You can view a very amusing performance (from which these audio samples were taken) here. Order here.