music      news/events      bio      recordings      contact The Bridge 2002 children’s chorus flute clarinet 2 trumpets trombone piano percussion    snare drum, suspended cymbal, triangle  doublebass  duration 7' commissioned by The City of Boston for the opening of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge  first performance: Boston Children’s Chorus, cond. Grant Llewellyn Blackman Auditorium, Boston / October 10, 2002 SCORE PERFORMANCE MATERIALS TEXTS Earth has not anything to show more fair:  Dull would he be of soul who could pass by  A sight so touching in its majesty;  This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,  Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie  Open unto the fields, and to the sky;  All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep  In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;  Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!  William Wordsworth (1770–1850) from Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802  Great are Yourself and Myself,  We are just as good and bad as the oldest and youngest or any,  What the best and worst did, we could do,  What they felt, do not we feel it in ourselves?  What they wished, do we not wish the same?  Walt Whitman (1819–1892) from Great Are The Myths  Earth has not anything to show more fair:  Dull would he be of soul who could pass by  A sight so touching in its majesty;  This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; The river glideth at his own sweet will: And all that mighty heart is lying still! William Wordsworth (1770–1850) from Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802      sidebar     I was excited to receive this commission after meeting a few times with     Hubie Jones, a significant force in Boston social and community life. He had     recently created the Boston Children's Chorus specifically for this civic     event –and the chorus continues to today. After the piece was written and     after rehearsals had just begun, the Zakim family decided they would     prefer to have just Bruce Springsteen – a friend of Lenny Zakim's –     perform and my piece was gazumped. Splendid that he agreed to play,     but I wish it could have been decided to also include this little 7 minute     celebration that so many people had put effort into. The Chorus graciously     included it instead in a concert performance later that year, but it would     have been fun to have heard it outdoors, on the bridge, used for its     original purpose.