What happens when a piece of music dares to become a manifesto instead of just a melody? Back in 2019, I received a commission for a new work centered on diversity and divergence. The story behind the commission is shrouded in a bit of myth—layered with anecdotes I was never able to fully verify. What […]
New Recordings
Score video for “BE NEAR ME”
A score video for BE NEAR ME is now available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eWIjaUIJlnU BE NEAR ME is a setting for unaccompanied Mixed Choir (SATB) or Men’s Chorus (TTBB) of Canto 50 from the poem In Memoriam A.H.H by the British Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson (1809 -1892). (Duration: ca. 5’15”). Published in 1850, the poem is […]
“Requiem for Animals” Recording
My “Requiem for Animals”, a 50-minute work for SATB Choir and String Orchestra, received a beautiful premiere in May by the Brattleboro Concert Choir conducted by Jonathan Harvey. Many composers, like Mozart, Verdi, and Faure, have created beautiful requiems to commemorate the dead, but these have always been for human life. With the massive loss […]
“The Song of the Star” at Marktoberdorf
Hi everyone I wanted to share with you a recent performance of my piece “The Song of the Star” with the Zürcher Sing-Akademie under the direction of Florian Helgath. It was sung at the opening concert of the famour choir competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany. Towards the end, the piece features a passage where the audience […]
Ave verum corpus
Just released — for Easter Weekend — an SATB a cappella setting of “Ave verum corpus.”
MY RED BOOTS for mixed chorus: world premiere recording performed by members of the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir – Virtual Singers
MY RED BOOTS is based on one of only several poems written by my mother, Jewish Holocaust survivor Rita Hoffman of blessed memory (1927–2018). Both she and my late father, Josef Hoffman, were Jewish Holocaust Survivors. My mother’s brief memoirs are housed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. I have been […]