Music of Ned Rorem

Ned Rorem's 'More Than A Day' is an orchestral song cycle dedicated to James Bridges. Based on nine poems by Jack Larson, Bridges' life companion, the music is neo-impressionistic, calling to mind Debussy, Copland, and Milhaud. Though they are love songs, they are not always delicate, and cover a wide range of complicated emotional terrain. Rorem's highly pictorial orchestration clearly evokes the imagery of Larson's text.Rorem wrote 'Water Music' for Robert Hughes' Youth Orchestra in 1966. The music features a challenging virtuosic duet for violin and clarinet, consciously set against less challenging music that surrounds it, the latter composed with consideration for the limitations of a student orchestra. 'From An Unknown Past' is Rorem's orchestrated solo vocal setting of his 1951 work for unaccompanied chorus based on various seventeenth-century poems.Brian Asawa is one of the pre-eminent young operatic countertenors of our time. His striking vocal clarity has won him several awa