Love Letters

Description

Audio

Duration

10 min.

Program Notes

On June 6, 2015 I married the love of my life, Chris. Chris and I grew up in a time when two men could not marry. In 2004, our home state of Massachusetts was the first to guarantee marriage equality. Yet, on the day Chris and I tied the knot, our marriage was only recognized in some parts of our country.

I composed this music for our ceremony as an expression of my deepest affection. The processional music, “Forever Began with Hello,” recalls the intoxicating magic of early love, with the main theme hued from our joined initials, C-B-O-C. “The Tree With the Lights in It,” performed as the ceremony’s interlude, draws its title from a passage in Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a mutual favorite book we discussed at length on our first date.

Three weeks after our wedding, the Supreme Court issued the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which recognized the fundamental right for same-sex couples to marry. These momentous events are forever entwined in my memory, and I feel immense gratitude to everyone who persevered to make love and equality available to all.

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