Arioso

(Unperformed)

Arioso is a piece for soprano voice and percussionist. It is based on the text from Carol Adler’s poem of the same name. The piece explores the percussive nature of the voice and the lyrical singing nature of many of the percussion instruments, based off of the hardness and softness of the consonant and vowel sounds from the poem. The words are deconstructed and spread over many minutes of music to give focus to the sound colors created with each vowel. Beginning in stasis, the piece gradually rises through a series of waves to a frenzied climax before disappearing into a brief chorale, in which the words are sung clearly for the only time in the piece.