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Among all the other previously published canons of its type, this one might as well have turned out to be the most demanding to perform, in no small part due to the choir's conventional maximum ranges being reached in at least three voices, including both soprano (C6) and bass (E2), making it no small feat to sing. The main lyrics would roughly translate from Latin to English as follows: "In the direst of circumstances the true heart of men shall sing with great hope of leaving behind a memorable life. Even death can conquer those whose memory lies in the glory of their good deeds." The coda, as per usual, reinforces the core message in a variety of ways. YouTube video link:

Perhaps my most intriguing Muzoracle casting to date - Fred asked the Muzoracle "How will I attain political power?". (Muzoracle is a storytelling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice.) My interpretation of the cards and dice are displayed below. Since two strings cards were dealt in the 1st and 3rd position, I used Violin and Cello. In the 2nd position I dealt a Tritone of Percussion so I used a Clavichord. In the 4th and 5th positions I dealt a Major 2nd and a Triad of Voices, so I used choir. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.net/ This short musical interpretation of Fred's Casting is about a minute and a half long. The piece is in C major since the black musician's die landed on C. I then made the following melodic/harmonic underdrawing that I used in the composition of the music. To fill out the piece harmonically I included Roman numeral interpretations of each of the dyads/positions in the casting. Since the piece starts with strings I used Violin, Cello and Harpsichord in the first three positions. The voices then come in on the 4th and 5th position. The Triad card is normally supposed to be interpreted as a major triad, but since this was a descending casting and the position where the triad card was dealt was descending I decided to interpret it in a negative harmony way, inverting the intervals of the triad downwards, thus producing an E minor triad based on B (Ti). Then, to conclude the piece I reversed the order of the chords in retrograde fashion to land back on the first chord at the conclusion, but reinterpreting it harmonically as a C major 6 chord. I also reinterpreted the triad as a major triad ascending from B (Ti). If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! And I hope you enjoy listening to this short chamber work I wrote to represent Fred's Casting. Comments, critiques, suggestions, or observations are of course, always welcome. Thanks for listening!

Like Mike I like the complete shift of mood, meter and rhythm in the passages. The music sounds like it's better not let Fred attain political power haha. Henry

Seasons greetings one and all! Just wanted to share this little experiment I tried this week, where I deconstructed Mozart's Requiem, then used little fragments to try and fashion a new piece. Later I decided to quote part of Mozart's work at the end: so it ended up a bit like a theme and variations in reverse. Not sure I'm done with it yet; though it may be finished? Including part of the original work probably just serves to show how weak my choral writing and voice leading is compared to Mozart's! I've a feeling it's a complete failure; but was fun to try. Anyway let me know your thoughts, if you have time.

I wrote this piece for Policromo ensemble, is inspired in baião rithm, a typical brazilian music.

Based on ruminations ("the action or process of thinking deeply about something") on "contingent ephmeral art" and the absurdity of the mundane. Liner note (also on last page): Ruminations for String Quartet in G, Jan 2026..mp3 All thoughts welcome! Every little piece of attention feeds my ego-

I got my piece to play for today 😁