A Thought Went Up My Mind Today (2026) for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano
Duration: 8:30 min
Commission: Margaret Marco – oboe, Midori Samson – bassoon and Priscila Navarro – piano, with generous support from the University of Kansas School of Music
Premiere: Margaret Marco – oboe, Midori Samson – bassoon and Priscila Navarro – piano, International Double Reed Conference, July 7, 2026.
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
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Program Note: A common thread in my chamber music for double reeds is its grounding in poetry. A Thought Went Up My Mind Today continues this approach, drawing inspiration from a poem by one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson. As with much of Dickinson’s work, I am immediately drawn into her world from the very first evocative line. Dickinson’s words also brought back a thought I once had while listening to the Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano by Francis Poulenc. When writing for this instrumentation, it is difficult not to acknowledge this beloved trio, which premiered a century ago in 1926. My thought was simple: what if Poulenc had remained in the soundworld established by those opening chords? Perhaps it is just me, but I am never quite ready to leave those chords and that atmosphere behind. The idea of lingering within that opening ultimately became the central impetus for my composition.
A Thought Went Up My Mind Today was commissioned by Margaret Marco – oboe, Midori Samson – bassoon and Priscila Navarro – piano, with generous support from the University of Kansas School of Music.
A Thought Went Up My Mind Today by Emily Dickinson
A Thought went up my mind today –
That I have had before –
But did not finish – some way back –
I could not fix the Year –
Nor Where it went – nor why it came
The second time to me –
Nor definitely what it was –
Have I the Art to say –
But somewhere – in my soul – I know –
I’ve met the Thing before –
It just reminded me – ’twas all –
And came my way no more.
This poem is in the public domain.
Fides, Spes (2022) for String Trio
Duration: 7:30 min
Commission: James Madison University Contemporary Music Festival for the 2022 Festival
Premiere: Wanchi, violin; Diane Phoenix-Neal, viola; Carl Donakowski, cello. 41st Contemporary Music Festival, James Madison University, October 17, 2022.
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
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More informationProgram Note: Willa Cather’s poem “Fides, Spes”— Latin for “Faith, Hope”—is an ode to the cyclical nature of the seasons: the vibrancy of Summer, matureness of Fall, death of Winter, and the hope that comes with Spring. All of it is nestled in the awareness of life’s impermanence. Faith and hope are emotions that give us a sense of optimism. In many ways the two words are intertwined. Cather’s words ground faith in the reality of the past and hope to the future. This alongside the poem’s vivid imagery, emotional landscape and poetic structure became the creative catalyst for my composition also entitled “Fides, Spes.”
“Fides, Spes” was commissioned by the James Madison University Contemporary Music Festival for the 2022 Festival.
Fides, Spes Willa Cather (1873-1947)
Joy is come to the little
Everywhere;
Pink to the peach and pink to the apple,
White to the pear.
Stars are come to the dogwood,
Astral, pale;
Mists are pink on the red-bud,
Veil after veil.
Flutes for the feathery locusts,
Soft as spray;
Tongues of the lovers for chestnuts, poplars,
Babbling May.
Yellow plumes for the willows’
Wind-blown hair;
Oak trees and sycamores only
Comfortless bare.
Sore from steel and the watching,
Somber and old,—
Wooing robes for the beeches, larches,
Splashed with gold;
Breath o’ love to the lilac,
Warm with noon.—
Great hearts cold when the little
Beat mad so soon.
What is their faith to bear it
Till it come,
Waiting with rain-cloud and swallow,
Frozen, dumb?
This poem is in the public domain and was first published in “April Twilights and other Poems” in 1903 and republished in 1923.
41st Contemporary Music Festival, James Madison University, October 17, 2022.
For the Time Being (2011) for Flute, Soprano Saxophone and Piano
Other Instrumentation available:
Flute, Oboe d’amore and Piano
Flute, English Horn and Piano
Flute, Bb Clarinet and Piano
Duration: 7 min
Commission: The Greenbrook Ensemble
Premiere: The Greenbrook Ensemble
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
Digital Score & Parts Flute, Oboe d’amore and Piano Version $25.
Digital Score & Parts Flute, English Horn and Piano Version $25. Loveliness Extreme (2007) for Clarinet, Viola and Piano Trio Version for Clarinet, Viola and Piano Version The Road is All (2007) for Piano Trio There are Things to be Said (2009) for Flute, Oboe and Piano To One Beyond Seas (2018) for Soprano, Violin and Piano The Voice of the Rain (2018) for Flute, Cello and Percussion Wider Than the Sky (2020) for Oboe Trio
Digital Score & Parts Flute, Bb Clarinet and Piano Version $25.
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Program Note: After picking the title, For the Time Being, I realized just how often I use this expression in my daily life. When we say these words we imply that whatever state we are in or whatever action we are performing is temporary and merely a fleeting moment. In reality, of course, all states and actions are temporary and our perception of permanence is an illusion. For the Time Being is the next exploration in a series of works examining this concept of passing time. For the Time Being was commissioned by The Greenbrook Ensemble, Nashville, TN.
Other Instrumentation available:
Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano (available in Chamber 4+)
Duration: 11 min
Commission: newEar contemporary chamber ensemble
Premiere: newEar contemporary chamber ensemble
April 28, 2007; Kansas City, MO
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
Digital Score & Parts Clarinet, Viola and Piano Version $25.
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Program Note: Words are the inspirational seeds for much of the music I write. “Loveliness Extreme” was inspired by Gertrude Stein’s 1913 poem, “Sacred Emily”:
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters,
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream
Pages ages page ages page ages.
Reading Stein, I get the sense that she was digging deep under each word, turning each over itself and the next, inside and out, to discover the possibilities that lay beneath. Stein said: “One of the things that is a very interesting thing to know is how you are feeling inside you to the words that are coming out to be outside of you.” The words “loveliness” and “extreme,” together, created a beautiful inner landscape that allowed me to discover a deeper understanding of the connection between what starts on the inside and grows into something that can be experienced on the outside. “Loveliness Extreme” was originally commissioned by newEar contemporary chamber ensemble for violin, clarinet, cello and piano and premiered in 2007. The trio version for viola, clarinet and piano was arranged for the NAVO Trio in 2013.
Duration: 12 min
Commission: newEar contemporary chamber ensemble
Premiere: newEar contemporary chamber ensemble
November 7, 2007; Kansas City, MO
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
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Other Instrumentation available:
Flute, Soprano Saxophone and Piano
Flute, Bb Clarinet and Piano
Duration: 9 min
Commission: Allégresse
Premiere: Allégresse; September 22, 2009; Lawrence, KS
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
Digital Score & Parts Flute, Soprano Saxophone and Piano version $25.
Digital Score & Parts Flute, Bb Clarinet and Piano version $25.
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There are things to be said.
No doubt.
And in one way or another
they will be said.
But to whom tell
the silences?
With whom share them
now?
For a moment the sky is
empty
and then there was a bird.
(Permission to use “There are Things to be Said” by Cid Corman granted by Bob Arnold, literary executor for Cid Corman.)
Flute – Emma Halnan Oboe – Penelope Smith Piano – Lana Bode
Text: Emily Pauline Johnson
Duration: 18 min
Vocal Range: C#4-A5
Commission: NAVO
Premiere: Sarah Tannehill Anderson, Soprano; Véronique Mathieu, Violin; Ellen Sommer, Piano. May 12, 2018, Overland Park, KS
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
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Program Notes: When I first encountered the poetry of Mohawk-Canadian poet Emily Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), also known in Mohawk as Tekahionwake, I was moved by her unique and strong poetic voice. “Autumn’s Orchestra,” a suite of ten short verses, is a powerful mediation on nature and life. Throughout the poem, Johnson uses vivid visual and auditory imagery as well as symbolism, which inspired my own musical imagination and became a driving force behind my setting. “To One Beyond Seas” was commissioned by NAVO.
Other Instrumentation available:
Flute, Viola and Percussion
Flute, Viola and Harp
Duration: 7 min
Percussion Details: Marimba & Vibraphone – 1 player
Commission: New Music USA Project Grant
Premiere: Sarah Frisof – flute, Hannah Collins – cello and Michael Compitello – percussion, May 22, 2018, Lansing, KS
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
Digital Score & Parts Flute, Viola and Percussion Version $25.
Digital Score & Parts Flute, Viola and Harp Version $25.
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The Voice of the Rain
And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,
Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:
I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,
Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,
Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely formed, altogether changed, and
yet the same,
I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,
And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;
And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,
and make pure and beautify it;
(For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,
Recked or unrecked, duly with love returns.)
Flute, Viola and Harp Version
Duration: 12 min
Instrumentation: Oboe, Oboe d’amore, English Horn
Other versions available: 2 Oboes and English Horn
2 Oboes and Bassoon
Commission: Celeste Johnson. Creation of this work was supported with funding from The Curators of the University of Missouri on behalf of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where Celeste Johnson is a faculty member.
Premiere: Celeste Johnson Frehner, oboe; Margaret Marco, oboe d’amore and Erin Huneke, English horn; 20th Midwest Double Reed Society, November 7, 2021
For recording, perusal score, program notes and performance history please click More Information below.
Digital Score Oboe, Oboe d’amore (includes optional Oboe 2 part) and English Horn Version & Parts $30.
Digital Score 2 Oboe and Bassoon Version & Parts $30.
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Program Notes: Emily Dickinson’s meditation on the power of human imagination is the inspiration for my oboe trio “Wider than the Sky.” In her poem, she takes an abstract concept and renders it into something tangible and visible for the reader, allowing us all to celebrate the power of human consciousness. The first two stanzas focus on the relationship between the mind and the outer world. The sky and the sea are enormous creations, and yet the mind can conceive and contain them as ideas. Much has been written about the third stanza and especially the meaning of the last line of this poem. For me, as sound is such an important part of my life, I believe she means that humans give meaning to sound and therefore give voice to creation. I am grateful to Celeste Johnson for commissioning this trio and giving voice to my imagination. Creation of this work was supported with funding from The Curators of the University of Missouri on behalf of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where Celeste Johnson is a faculty member.
Wider than the Sky
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and you—beside—
The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As sponges—Buckets—do—
The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—
Emily Dickinson, c. 1862