I am nearly finished with a soprano-and-piano setting of “The Pitcher”, a poem by Robert Francis. This will be premiered at Cornell University next February 15 by Lucy Fitz Gibbon and Ryan MacEvoy McCollough, and subsequently recorded by them for Albany Records. The program will also be heard at Bard College on February 19, and at Penn on February 21. Like the poem, my setting is rather whimsical, though on the dissonant side. In working on it, I’ve made a row chart for the first time in a while – a sort of box score for pitches, I guess.

It’s the first Sunday of Advent, so here is a beloved cantata for the end of one liturgical year and the beginning of the next: