VOICE WITH ENSEMBLE - Natural Selection (2000)

Commissioned by Faber Music for its Millennium Series.

"Composer Derek Bermel may not be a household name yet, but if there is any justice in the music world, he soon will be. His Natural Selection, a song cycle based on poetry of Wendy S. Walters and Naomi Shihab Nye, is a group of animal portraits that achieves a dramatic complexity that belies its commonplace subject. Baritone Timothy Jones was extraordinary."
- CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Program Notes:
In 1997 I was nominated by the composer Nicholas Maw to compose a work which would be published as part of Fabermusics Millennium Commission Series. I chose to orchestrate settings by my long-time collaborator, the American poet Wendy S. Walters. I began work on One Fly and Spider Love; moving up the food chain, I added Dog by the poet Naomi Shihab Nye and Got My Bag of Brown Shoes by Walters, which completes the cycle by including human nature as part of these animal portraits.

The cycle was premiered in Nov. 2000 at the Huddersfield Festival by Ensemble 10/10, conducted by Clark Rundell. Many thanks to Timothy Jones, Stephanie SantAmbrogio, Jeffrey Sykes, Tim Brooke, and Elaine Gould, who helped this work come to life.

Derek Bermel

Mvt I. One Fly
Mvt II. Spider Love
Mvt III. Got My Bag of Brown Shoes
Mvt IV. Dog