Works

Trinquez, Trinquez is a choral arrangement of three Cajun folk songs: Ma Chère Bassette, Mes Petits Yeux Noirs, and Trinquez, Trinquez. The melody of each song is, for the most part, kept intact. The chords, however, are often changed.

Ma Chère Bassette (My Dear Little Woman) and Mes Petits Yeux Noirs (My Little Black Eyes) are both concerned with the plaints of broken-hearted lovers. Trinquez, Trinquez (Toast, Toast), on the other hand, is a Christmas drinking song as remembered by the great Creole fiddler Canray Fontenot.

Two movements from Les Amours et les Beaux Jours arranged for mixed choir and piano.

This work was commissioned and premiered by the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra (Mariusz Smolij, Music Director) for its 25th anniversary. Each of the four movements is based on an old Cajun folk song from the Alan Lomax recordings of 1934.

See Old Cajun Songs below for a piano reduction of two movements.

Each movement sets the same text taken from the book of Job (verses 13-16). The first movement emphasizes the unsettling and somewhat frightening aspect of Eliphaz’s mystical experience. By contrast, the second movement attempts to convey a sense of calm and awe which, perhaps, one might feel in the presence of a divine being.