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GENRE:

◻︎ All

◻︎ Chamber

◻︎ Choral

◻︎ Ensemble

◻︎ Orchestral

◻︎ Solo

◼︎ Vocal

MUSIC

ONCE A WHILE IN TIME (2023)
TENOR, PIANO
7 min.

A set of three songs drawn from letters by the American public to Jackeline Onassis Kennedy in response to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, combined with fragments of Willie Nelson's song "Ain't it Funny How Time Slips Away" which appeared on the Top 40's charts the week Kennedy was killed.

THE BOOK OF NEVER (2017-2020)
Chorus (SSAATTBB)
31 min.
A choral cycle based on the Novgorod Codex — a book of Ukranian psalms from 999 A.D. overwritten hundreds of times with heretical sermons by an excommunicated Pagan missionary — built on echos of ancient hymn fragments, the first words of a now-forgotten language, a banished monk’s apocalyptic visions of a distant future, and scraps of text by contemporary writers in exile.
A WAY FAR HOME (2016)
Chorus (SSAATTBB), Org
10 min.
A tapestry of choral images that freely arrange the 1,451 words from poet Kazim Ali's English translation of Marguerite Duras’ proto-screenplay L’amour, loosely based on her youth as a colonial settler in Saigon and the France she “returned” to for the first time just as the Nazis came to power across Europe, each ravaged by occupation.
SNOW REQUIEM (2015)
Sop, Vln, Str Orch, Hrp, 4 Perc, Chor
20 min.
An anti-cantata based on author David Laskin’s account of the Children’s Blizzard of 1888. Combines fragments of Norwegian folk song transcriptions from the tralling and Hardanger fiddle traditions, as well as sonifications of weather data fashioned into clouds of orchestral noise and wordless vocal chorales.
A LONG WHILE (2014)
Sop, Pno
15 min.
A Schwanengesang for a centuries-old woman that never lived using vocal, verbal, and harmonic fragments with text freely assembled from the 583 words spoken by Hermione in William Shakespeare's final stage work, The Winter's Tale.
POEMS OF SHEER NOTHINGNESS (2013)
Sop, Fl, Cl, Vln, Vcl, Pno
38 min.
Five troubadour verses on the subject of songwriting in their original Occitan, carefully scattered among transcribed and fragmented audio recordings of Helgeson's work sessions while setting them, creating music that's a poetic record of its own making.
NOR EYES, NOR THOU, I KNOW (2012)
Men's Chorus
6 min.
A collection of murmurs, cries, shouts, and moans, with text adapted from Walt Whitman's "Darest Thou Now, O Soul" in Leaves of Grass. 
NOTES ON A PAGE (OF SAPPHO) (2009)
Sop, Fl, Ob, B Cl, 2-3 Perc, Hrp, Gtr, Vln, Vla, Vcl 
16 min.
A setting of Greek poet Sappho's lyric fragments, in an English translation by Anne Carson, using imaginary transcriptions of sonic images found within the text. 
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