Pendulum New Music

Program notes

A Spooky Tale

Indigo Farmer

Prelude: “Welcome to Town”- In this piece, I am picturing Breckenridge, Colorado. My brother and I drove through it at night last winter, and the whole place was covered in white Christmas lights.

Fugue: “A Dark Legend”- The legend is a story about a kidnapper that lurks in the woods and wears a black veil.

Ellie: “My Imaginary Friend”- Ellie is the name of the narrator’s imaginary friend. The narrator is from the town in the Prelude.

Winterdove

Josh Maynard

Winterdove was written to encapsulate the nostalgia and innocence lost after childhood, as well as the precious bonds of family. This piece is played with violin, cello, piano, glockenspiel and bowed vibraphone. First performed by the Denver Playground Ensemble at the University of Denver’s Lamont Academy of Music, Winterdove uses gentle and timeless melodies to tell the story of love and loss.

Praise for Winterdove:

“it could have easily been a pretty tune with nothing below the surface, but Maynard showed his compositional chops with very limited material, and the final result was patient, cohesive, and really quite impressive.” —John Rot, Professor and Department Chair of Composition, University of Denver

“Maynard created a lyrical, expressive, and accessible work that communicates true, sincere feeling.” —Rachel Hutchings, Professor of Piano and Composition, University of Denver

Pet’s House (2021)

Spencer Stepanek (she/her)

What do they know, but luxury
When all the work is done by me
I’d like to share the drudgery
with you. again

How could you know just how they feel
when you’re their floating spinning wheel
that keeps the world from upside down
and keeps the litter off the ground
It’s a pet’s house
I’m doing the chores for you
In this pet’s house
There’s no room for you in this
pet’s house
We’re all losers here
in this pet’s house
It’s a pet’s house
your chores, abundantly
it is the price of company
home is still so lonely
when you’re gone

The rug, it’s ruined
but I knew it wasn’t you
cause it’s covered with the smell
of cat pee and dog poo
Now please do not relate this to my self-proclaimed ability
to build a healthy kid or to build a healthy family
because every time I brought it up you got real, real
quiet.

Ever day when I look into their eyes I see yours
instead
And their in my bed. and I’ll hold them. like I held you
I know you’re not a cat person
so I’ll clean the litter box again
but honestly you’re right
I would’ve waited for you to do that one

and jesus christ what will they do
without you picking up their poop
cause just I don’t have the stomach
or the will. I guess that’s why you left

Oh don’t delete my number or I’d be dead
how do I help the geckos shed
where do you keep those fish pellets
and where do you hide your resolve

Four songs from Mortality Mansions (2018)

Herschel Garfein
Poetry by Donald Hall

“Two arts performed together illuminate each other. A poem printed on a broadside, designed by a master, adds exquisite shape to exquisite language. The greatest poetic enhancement happens when a brilliant composer sets good poems to music. I am deeply grateful for Herschel Garfein’s Mortality Mansions, where he turns my poems into song, elevating my images as Michael Slattery’s golden tenor joins Dimitri Dover’s brilliant pianism. The poem by my late wife, Jane Kenyon, is sung glowingly by Marnie Breckenridge.

“For me, poetry has always centered on its sound. Reading poems in silence, I hear them with my mouth. Three syllables like “dark barn door” are delicious even before they turn wooden and shadowy. When Herschel embellishes my lines by his music, he exalts one rapture by means of another. Perched in my blue chair, I am spellbound as I listen to his art transcend the language of my invention. From the first syllables to the last, maybe most gloriously in ‘Gold,’ we are swept through art’s grandeur into the final achievement of unblemished silence.”