Description
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About the Anthology
These songs, which were predominantly composed in the 21st century, represent a broad range of compositional styles from composers living and writing today, and were curated for intermediate through advanced voices. Many of the songs in this volume are excerpted from larger cycles of songs, available directly from the composers.
The NewMusicShelf Anthologies of New Music are a bold, new publishing initiative aimed at bringing new and unknown composers and repertoire to student and professional performers alike. With an emphasis on works not found in the traditional publishing ecosystem, each volume is curated by performers who have a reputation for championing new music, with an eye toward selecting works with a range of styles and difficulties that are suitable for concert and recital performance.
With this innovative mode of publishing, NewMusicShelf advocates for self-published composers in a way previously unheard of in the realm of classical music: all self-published composers retain full ownership of their work while earning a generous royalty on every sale. Your support of this project directly benefits these composers, and also helps NewMusicShelf to continue to promote the works of the many excellent composers writing today. We encourage you to explore these composers' catalogs in greater depth, and hope that these songs inspire many fruitful and rewarding collaborations!
Songs in this volume
| Composer | Song Title | Author of Text | Year Composed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Ayres | The Salutation (from The Light Walking) | Thomas Traherne | 2015 |
| Chester Biscardi | At Any Given Moment (from Modern Love Songs) | William Zinsser | 2002 |
| Clint Borzoni | In The Golden Afternoon (from Within the Looking Glass) | Lewis Carroll | 2015 |
| Steven Burke | Inebriate of Air | Emily Dickinson | 2012 |
| Daniel Gilliam | Like men and women (from Songs of Insects and Animals) | Emily Dickinson | 2011 |
| Juliana Hall | June (from The Poet’s Calendar) | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | 1999 |
| Drew Hemenger | Her Final Show | Rafael Campo | 2012 |
| Garrett Hope | Princess Stories (from Somewhere, Love) | Joel E. Jacobson | 2009 |
| Rory Johnston | Like the dove (from Nostalgia) | Eli Carvajal | 2015 |
| David Leisner | Love and Friendship (from Confiding) | Emily Brontë | 1985 |
| Lisa Neher | Tuesdays and Thursdays (from Snapshots) | Anonymous | 2010 |
| Frank J. Oteri | Prick’d | William Shakespeare | 2016 |
| Gabrielle Owens | Black is the Color (from Three Folk Songs) | Traditional | 2016 |
| Darien Shulman | If Thou’lt Be Mine (from Three Poems of Thomas Moore) | Thomas Moore | 2007 |
| Dennis Tobenski | John Anderson, My Jo (from And He’ll Be Mine) | Robert Burns | 2005 |
| Craig Urquhart | Here The Frailest Leaves of Me (from Leaves) | Walt Whitman | 1986 |
| Philip Wharton | Let Me Play the Fool (from Fools) | William Shakespeare | 2014 |
| Scott Wheeler | Night (from Heaven and Earth) | William Blake | 2007 |
| David Wolfson | When First I Loved You (from Six Love Songs) | David Wolfson | 1998 |
| Roger Zahab | River | Roger Zahab | 2016 |
Audio Samples
About the Curator
Dennis Tobenski is a composer of acoustic new music, a vocalist, and a strong advocate for new music and for the interests of living composers.
Dennis’s Only Air, a 20-minute work for high voice and orchestra memorializing the gay teenagers who have taken their own lives in recent years, was commissioned by the Illinois State University Symphony Orchestra, and has been performed in a chamber version by The Secret Opera in New York and members of the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony.
Called a “dynamic vocalist” by Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times, and “a skillful and sensitive singer who shapes phrases and renders text with expert care” by Gregory Berg of Journal of Singing, Dennis’s focus as a vocalist is primarily on the works of the 21st and late 20th centuries. He has premiered works by David Del Tredici, Chester Biscardi, Ricky Ian Gordon, Darien Shulman, and Hadar Noiberg, among others.
In February 2016, he and pianist Marc Peloquin released their first album together, a disc of 19 art songs by living American composers titled And He’ll Be Mine, which features works by David Del Tredici, Chester Biscardi, Zachary Wadsworth, Darien Shulman, and Dennis Tobenski.
Dennis hosts the Music Publishing Podcast and The Composer’s Guide to Doing Business: two music business-centered podcasts aimed at helping composers and performers to learn more about the practical aspects of their careers.
He is also the founder of NewMusicShelf, an online marketplace devoted to bringing together performers of new music and independently-published composers by offering a platform for composers to sell digital editions of their works.
Dennis received his B.Mus. in Vocal Performance and Music Theory & Composition from Illinois State University, and his M.A. in Music Composition from The City College of New York.
His principal teachers have included David Del Tredici, Chester Biscardi, and David Feurzeig. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for Composers Now, and the Board of Directors of the KeyedUp MusicProject. Dennis lives in New York City with his husband Darien Scott Shulman and their cat Pistachio. www.dennistobenski.com
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