WORLDLY HOPES (1985)
mezzo-soprano and piano, 22 min.

These songs are based on five short poems by A.R. Ammons. Though the poems are small-scale, the reader is drawn into their seemingly boundless areas. In the music, expanses are conveyed through elongated phrases on certain words and syllables, through gradually shifting motions over a large shape. "Shading Flight In" is an elegy to the memory of my teacher Roger Sessions. Worldy Hopes was written for and first performed by Jan DeGaetani and Gilbert Kalish.