Wind Ensemble

Brass Choir

Choir

Mental Gymnastics (2011)
Wind on the Island (2005)
In You the Earth (2004)

Duration: 6’30”
Written for SSAATTBB , plus two places where the women split into five parts and one where the men split into five parts

First three score pages (pdf)

Excerpt 1            Excerpt 2             Excerpt 3

In You the Earth was composed in collaboration with Dr. Dirk Garner, then Director of Choral Studies at Oklahoma State University. Having composed almost entirely instrumental music until that time, I relied heavily upon Dirk’s advice, collection of choral recordings, and several reading sessions with his Concert Chorale during the creative process. It was a great joy for me to experience the power of the human voice and explore its broad emotional spectrum. In You the Earth was awarded the Arant Choral Composition Prize through the University of Georgia and placed third in the NUVOVOX Choral Competition. Surely the success of the piece is due in large part to the breathtaking poetry of Pablo Neruda.

In You the Earth

Little                                                                       
rose,
roselet,
at times,
tiny and naked,
it seems
as though you would fit
in one of my hands,
as though I’ll clasp you like this
and carry you to my mouth,
but
suddenly
my feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips:
you have grown,
your shoulders rise like two hills,
your breasts wander over my breast,
my arm scarcely manages to encircle the thin
new-moon line of your waist:
in love you have loosened yourself like sea water:
I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes
and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.                                                     

Poem by Pablo Neruda                                                     
English translation by Donald D. Walsh

Contact the composer directly to inquire about score/parts: mikedambrosio@gmail.com

Solo Works

Music for Two

Chamber Music for Larger Ensembles