Two Scenes from Shakespeare (2014) – SATB (TTBB) a cappella choir (7′)
I. The Iron Tongue of Midnight (3′)
II. The Seasons Alter (4′)
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-2nd prize winner in the inaugural International Composition Contest portion of the 10th annual Busan Choral Festival and Competition, “Two Scenes from Shakespeare” takes its text, as the title suggests, from two different scenes from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The first movement, “The Iron Tongue of Midnight,” focuses on various shifting ostinati between the voices, juggling around the mazy Shakespeare text, full of colliding consonants and sweet vowels, to create a lush and glossy-eyed texture throughout, like being up late at night, unable to sleep. The second movement, “The Seasons Alter,” has a more vertical sense of harmony and texture than the first. With dense, expressive chord structures, short bursts of melody, and swiftly moving, interconnected sections, this movement focuses on the strangely changing seasons in the play. Tonal areas burst out of unisons, and the text is often split between the ensemble in staggered entrances to create a sense of the choir as a total instrument instead of separate parts.