Goli az dast beraft (2017) (گلی از دست برفت)  – for SATB choir a cappella (6′)
-Commissioned and performed by the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers (Phillip Brunelle, cond.) at the 2017 ACDA Conference of Minnesota, as part of the VocalEssence ReMix Program which is funded by the Jerome Foundation.
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This short and somber Persian lullaby, in the form of a rubaiyat, tells of the loss of a lover and what remains in the shadow of this loss. The text is presented in three iterations, bookended by ethereal, gentle humming. The first presentation acts as a hushed and fragile recount of the speaker’s loss, the sighing nature of the leaps in the melodic structure emphasized by the limping, hollow unisons. The second presentation offers a partial harmonization of various stressed and unstressed syllables and words with a slightly stronger, more intense dynamic. The final presentation is a full harmonization and elegiac declaration which descends into a muted and muddled finish, wandering, humming, soothing.