Triptych (1992) for Soprano and String Quartet (18 min.) was first premiered at the International Composers Festival in Tailloires, France and has been performed and recorded by CUBE with soprano Susanna Phillips (2008). It was a finalist in the Brandeis Women Composers Competition (2007).
Triptych is a setting of poems by three poets very close to my heart: my friend, John Shreffler, and my two sons, James and Ian Morehead. It was written for soprano Maria Tegzes. The songs explore three different facets of my compositional activity.
“Night Thoughts” (John Shreffler, poet) is an abstract, atonal movement, which tries to capture the distorted and disjointed dream state of the restless interface between consciousness and sleep. The internal motion of the poem influences the tempo of the music resulting in the use of several metric modulations. “Sipping tea in samarkand” (James Morehead, poet) from portraits of red and grey is a nostalgic poem that tries to evoke the feeling of distant and exotic lands by means of a more modal setting. “Brass Rail Blues” (Ian Morehead, poet) is an urban poem with a distinct popular culture rhythm. The setting aims at capturing the feeling of an old Chicago blues.