Instrumentation: Flute
Duration: 8:30
Premiere: 5/4/74
Nadine Asin
Paul Hall, The Juilliard School, New York, NY
Program Note
Singing Still is a slightly revised and retitled version of my earlier Limericks. The new title, which seemed more apt, is from a phrase of Sara Teasdale’s poem, Redbirds. A vivid nature poem, it sings of her memory of a spring day, lightened with the song of birds. It also refers to my own feelings about making music. Singing Still is cast in three contrasting movements, with each successive one marked by a light trace of the previous. It is one of my earliest pieces for flute, premiered by Nadine Asia at my Masters recital at Juilliard in 1974. Flute was one of my main instruments growing up and it was exciting to create new music for an instrument I knew from the inside out. –JS