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APNM COMPOSER: Hayes Biggs
Hayes Biggs was born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1957 and raised in Helena, Arkansas. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree
in composition from Columbia University. His teachers include Mario Davidovsky, Jack Beeson, Fred Lerdahl, Donald Erb, and Don
Freund. Biggs has received fellowships and commissions from, among others, the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center
at Wellesley, the Tanglewood Music Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the American Composers Forum, the Jerome Foundation,
the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
and Copland House. Since 1992 he has been on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. His music is published by APNM, C. F.
Peters Corporation and Margun Music.
Jacob wrestling is roughly 7 minutes long, and scored for narrator, soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists, clarinet (doubling bass
clarinet), 2 saxophones, percussion (1 player) and piano. The singers sing only in Hebrew, their vocal lines derived almost entirely
from the traditional chant used for this portion of the Torah, while the narration is in English, freely adapted from the King James
and Revised Standard Versions of the Bible. On the eve of reconciling with his long estranged twin brother Esau, Jacob is described
as wrestling with what has traditionally been assumed to be an angel or similar supernatural being, though the original Hebrew
refers to him only as “a man.” Jacob is rewarded for “striving with God and with man,” and given the new name “Israel.”
From the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet, written in 2002, is scored for soloists - 2 sopranos, mezzo-soprano, 2 altos, tenor
and bass), mixed chorus, finger cymbals and piano 4 hands. The texts are largely drawn from the King James version of the Bible,
but I have retained the traditional Latin of the Roman rite in the incipit and certain other spots, often as a “shadow” text, and I
also make use of another liturgical custom beloved of composers, that of setting the initial Hebrew letters that are used as headings
for each verse. The musical vocabulary ranges from the coolly lucid abstraction of those settings to much more intensely lyrical and
dramatic writing for the voices, with liberal quotation of traditional chant sources.
Email the composer || Visit the composer's personal website
All APNM Works by Hayes Biggs |
Duration |
Year |
Materials Available |
Sound Sample |
AUTUMN WIND/WINTER RAIN: SOLITUDE Eleven Haiku Settings for Four Voices Unaccompanied |
15 min |
2002 |
score |
No |
BALULALOW Christmas carol 16th c. English mixed chorus unaccompanied |
2 min 15 sec |
1999 |
score |
No |
DUÉRMETE, NIÑO, DUÉRME SS (soli or chorus), flute |
2 min |
2006 |
score |
No |
EN BELÉN TOCAN A FUEGO TTBB, harp |
1 min |
2005 |
score |
No |
FROM "A SONG FOR OCCUPATIONS" text from Walt Whitman,
mixed chorus, flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet in B-flat and piano |
5 min 30 sec |
2003 |
score |
No |
FROM "THE SHEPHEARDS’ SONG" Caroll or Himne for Christmas; 1600’s text by Edmund Bolton,
chorus of mixed voices and oboe d’amore |
2 min |
2003 |
score |
No |
FROM THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH Latin /English biblical texts
2 soprano, mezzo-soprano, 2 alto, tenor and bass soli, SATB chorus, piano, four hands and finger cymbal |
12 min |
2002 |
score |
No |
I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY
SATB unaccompanied with divisi, text by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
1 min 30 sec |
2013 |
score |
No |
I SAW A SWETE SEMLY SYGHT Christmas carol Middle English,
mezzo-soprano solo, SSA, 2 flutes, 2 oboe d'amore and finger cymbals (or triangle) |
2 min |
2001 |
score |
No |
JACOB WRESTLING narrator, soprano solo, mezzo-soprano solo, clarinet (Bcl), alto sax(bar sax),
tenor sax (soprano sax), piano, 1 percussion (vibraphone, marimba w. low extension, chimes, sizzle cymbal,
3 tuned gongs, large tam-tam, tambourine, 4 tom-toms, bass drum) |
7 min |
2004 |
score, parts |
No |
MIDWINTER arrangement of Gustav Holst’s Cranham, poem by Christina
Rossetti (SATB, with divisi, unaccompanied) |
4 min |
1988 |
score |
No |
MOTET: I SYNGE OF A MAYDEN/EX SEMINE anon. English text, ca. 1400 with interpolation
of Perotin’s clausula Ex semine, baritone or bass solo, 2-part soprano chorus, alto flute, oboe d’amore, cello |
2 min 30 sec |
2002 |
score |
No |
NOVA, NOVA arrangement; 15th c. English carol Mixed chorus, oboe, English horn, violoncello and congas |
3 min |
2000 |
score |
No |
THE OXEN (poem by Thomas Hardy) Baritone solo, SSAA, harp |
3 min |
2008 |
score |
No |
PAN-FARE 2 piccolos, 2 clarinets, alto sax (bar sax), tenor sax, trumpet, trombone, tuba, piano, 2
percussion (1: lead steel pan, vibraslap, pedal bass drum, pedal tambourine; 2: bongos,
congas, vibraslap, Chinese opera gong, marimba w. low extension) |
3 min |
2007 |
score, parts |
No |
PRELUDE AND FREUND'S FUGUING TUNE solo piano |
7 min |
2012 |
score |
No |
PSALMS, HYMNS & SPIRITUAL SONGS, Song Cycle on Religious Poetry for soprano and piano, texts from the
Psalms (New International Version), Michael Wigglesworth, George Herbert, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Jane Kenyon and Gerard Manley Hopkins |
30 min |
2011 |
score |
No |
SICUT ROSA (SSAA unaccompanied) |
2 min 30 sec |
2004 |
score |
No |
STILL THRO’ THE CLOVEN SKIES THEY COME (SATB, with divisi, unaccompanied) |
2 min |
2008 |
score |
No |
STRING QUARTET: O SAPIENTIA/STEAL AWAY |
24 min |
2004 |
score, parts |
No |
SULTRY AIR, BALMY BREEZES, flute, cello, harp and piano |
9 min |
2008 |
score, parts |
No |
SUSAN'S WALTZ (VALSE SENTIMENTALE) piano solo |
4 min |
2002 |
score |
No |
SYMPHONIA BREVIS (Symphony No. 1 for Classical Orchestra) 02(EH)12 2200 Timp Str |
15 min 30 sec |
2010 |
score, parts |
No |
TAGRANGO, BEING A BRIEF IDENTITY CRISIS FOR PIANO SOLO |
1 min 30 sec |
1997 |
score |
No |
THERE IS NO ROSE OF SWICH VERTU Christmas carol, mixed chorus unaccompanied, 15th c. English text |
1 min 30 sec |
1998 |
score |
No |
THE TRILL IS GONE solo tenor saxophone |
4 min |
2013 |
score |
No |
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