This is the first choral piece I ever wrote. It was my freshman year at TCU, and my theory professor, Dr. Till MacIvor Meyn, assigned me a project to write a composition in the style of a Bach chorale. He encouraged me to find a text and just go for it, but when I read Lord Byron’s poem “Stanzas for Music,“ I asked Dr. Meyn if I could write a “normal“ choral composition. Thankfully, he agreed enthusiastically, and I wrote this piece in a week, having so much fun in the process.

I sent the score back to my high school alma mater, Allen High School, and the varsity chorale performed it at their Spring Concert in 2018 under the direction of Mr. Brian McKinney.

This selection is published by Alliance Music Publications.

Stanzas for Music

There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

–Lord Byron (1788-1824)