The Best of Rooms

The Best of Rooms

The Morning Train: 4. Worrisome Blues

This fourth and closing song of the set "The Morning Train" is perhaps the best known and most rousing of the set. The original title is "Worried Man Blues." But in this new arrangement, the women join in with the theme and sentiment. So, the title has been changed to "Worrisome Blues." Duration: 5:15.

Three Settings of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash is often cited as our country’s best-known author of humorous poetry. His style emphasizes unconventional rhyming schemes and invented words, both features of the three poems included in my set “Three Settings of Ogden Nash.” These three poems express a loose narrative of experiences and images from civilized urban and suburban life in mid-century America. “Tin Wedding Whistle,” is a marriage proposal. “Pretty Halcyon Days” is a humorous sketch of a day at the beach. “A Lady Who Thinks She is Thirty” explores the fears of growing old.: the narrator wisely reassures the lady that “beauty is timelessness for you.” To capture this tone musically, I strove to find a stylethat incorporated aspects of popular music, including gentle syncopations and jazz-influenced harmonies, integrated with the conventions of American classical Art Song. -David Conte

Three Settings of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash is often cited as our country’s best-known author of humorous poetry. His style emphasizes unconventional rhyming schemes and invented words, both features of the three poems included in my set “Three Settings of Ogden Nash.” These three poems express a loose narrative of experiences and images from civilized urban and suburban life in mid-century America. “Tin Wedding Whistle,” is a marriage proposal. “Pretty Halcyon Days” is a humorous sketch of a day at the beach. “A Lady Who Thinks She is Thirty” explores the fears of growing old.: the narrator wisely reassures the lady that “beauty is timelessness for you.” To capture this tone musically, I strove to find a stylethat incorporated aspects of popular music, including gentle syncopations and jazz-influenced harmonies, integrated with the conventions of American classical Art Song. -David Conte

Reverie Hommage a Francis Poulenc

Poignant, evocative, wistful, playful, charming. These are just a few of the many adjectives that recount Francis Poulenc's musical craft, and perhaps, even his own personal disposition. When the musical elite begin any discussion (or argument) regarding the art of Francis Poulenc, one quote patented by noted music critic Claude Rostand seems to always bubble towards the surface: "In Poulenc, there is something of the monk and something of the rascal." How often we see that dichotomous but unifying strand of inspiration throughout his entire oeuvre! With the contrasting and complimentary ingredients of both piety and playfulness thoughtfully put in place, it is the intent ofRêverie to conjure the heart of Poulenc's musical form. Rêverie is a work that combines harmonic inventiveness, melodic poignancy and rhythms sprinkled with mischievous pulses. While the work does pay homage to the master with reverence, it simultaneously summons a fresh, new perspective of these old, familiar forms-these "ships" of our pasts. With that said, perhaps it is best to let Stravinsky take the helm: "[But] the true work of an artist is to improve upon old ships. He can only recount in his own way what has already been told." -Luke MayernikIncludes score and Alto Saxophone part. Duration: 6:30