A song cycle for voices and strings.
This piece pays homage to my family's four generational affiliation with the Pentecostal church. My intent is to re-create the musical experience of an African American Pentecostal church service that I enjoyed being apart of while growing up in this denomination.
My intent is to re-create the musical experience of an African American Pentecostal church service that I enjoyed being apart of while growing up in this denomination.
The scripture says that “Power and life are in the tongue.” (Proverbs 18:21) Simply put, we are what we believe and speak about ourselves. This work was commissioned by the LA Master Chorale.
In 2020, I was asked to compose a piece using the provocative poetry of Terrance Hayes. I chose the following three poems from Hayes’ collection American Sonnets For My Past and Future Assassin because I felt they represented my personal state of mind and view points as a Black American man (especially Inside Me) at that time. This piece was commissioned by the Brooklyn Art Song Society.
Bill Traylor was born a slave in Alabama in 1853 and died in 1949. He lived long enough to see the United States of America go through many social and political changes. He was an eyewitness to the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation and the Great Migration.
"Drop Thy still dews of quietness // Till all our striving cease” Deeply inspired by Howard Thurman, I wanted to write a piece that encourages others to simply reflect and breathe.
An arrangement of this classic aria from the 24 Italian Art songs collection.
As the son of a Pentecostal preacher, no other memory stands out more than being a part of a “tarrying service”. The “tarry service”, usually on Friday nights, was for those members (mostly teenagers) who had not received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
“If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing, Then better far the hateful fret, the sting.”
Film Cue with Middle Eastern influence.
This piece is an artistic reflection dedicated to those who have been murdered wrongfully by an oppressive power; namely Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Score for the First Runner Up for the Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Contest
This piece was inspired by a journal entry from Ludvig van Beethoven’s notebook written in 1815: “Iliad. The Twenty-Second Book But Fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit And that some great deed shall beget that all lives shall inherit.”
These are my feelings on the crimes of BOTH the oppressor and the oppressed in Baltimore and throughout the country.
Dance has always been a part of any culture. Particularly in Black American communities, dance is and has been the fabric of social gatherings. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of dances created over the span of American history that have originated from the social climate of American slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow. This piece is an orchestral study of the music that is associated with the Ring Shout, the Waltz, Tap Dance and the Holy Dance. All of these dances are but a mere representation of the wide range of cultural and social differences within the Black American communities.
Feeling 70's Funky...
My patriarchal heritage shows three generations of preachers. My great grand father, Bishop Henry C. Brooks, who began preaching in 1925, my grandfather, Bishop Charles W. Hairston in 1947 and my father Bishop Carlos O. Simon, Sr. in 1994. I chose to use audio clips from past sermons after discovering old LP and several old cassette tapes of sermons from my great grandfather and grandfather.