Today I present my original composition, IN A COOL PLACE.  I completed this piece in 1999 and scored it for jazz sextet (flugel horn, tenor saxophone, electric guitar, piano, upright bass, and brush drum kit).   Below is a screenshot of the title page from the autograph score:

This composition was my attempt to create the kind of "classic" jazz I frequently heard while growing up.

As I sometimes do, I created a little scenario by the combination of several different sound effects to contribute immersion to the listening experience.

Listen at SoundClick
Listen at MP3Unsigned

IN A COOL PLACE, Copyright©1999 DamonMusic by Sean Damon Rohde. All rights reserved

Today I present my original composition, A LIFE IN A DAY.  I composed this little song in 2012 to my own words for my father. It is scored for soprano voice, two guitars, and mandolin.  Below is a screenshot of the title page from the autograph score:

If my Life consisted of just a single day
And none but you alone were I to know,
I'd live my precious seconds with great thankfulness away,
Knowing that my joy to you would owe.

Father, father, father, father,
All to you I owe.
Father, father, father, father,
All to you I owe.

And when that eve, I'd lay me down for first and final time,
My light and happy heart to gently cease,
I'd turn to you and say before my clock's final chime--
"Father, all I ever knew was peace."

Father, father, father, father,
All I knew was peace.
Father, father, father, father,
All I knew was peace.
All I knew was peace.
All I knew was peace.

***

I wrote this in commemoration of my father's 70th birthday.

Listen at SoundClick 
Listen at MP3Unsigned

A LIFE IN A DAY, Copyright©2012 DamonMusic by Sean Damon Rohde. All rights reserved

Today I present my original composition, THE FRUITS OF SILENCE (CHORUS FOR MOTHER TERESA).  I completed this piece in 1996 and scored it for choir and organ.  Below is a screenshot of the title page from the autograph score:

In late 1994, I wrote to Mother Teresa saying that I was composing a choral work in celebration of her, her sisterhood, and her forty-five years of service on behalf of the "poorest of the poor". Soon I received a letter in response from Mother Teresa, herself, in which she expressed her gratitude for my gesture.

Enclosed in her letter to me was a small card on which was printed this simple prayer:

The fruit of Silence is Prayer.
The fruit of Prayer is Faith.
The fruit of Faith is Love.
The fruit of Love is Service.
The fruit of Service is Peace.

Not having found any text for my new work or even any title, I immediately realized that those few lines would fit the music almost perfectly. So, I set her words to my notes, finished the work, titled it THE FRUITS OF SILENCE, and through good fortune had it performed in May of 1997 at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco. I sent a recording of the performance to her, and she wrote back thanking me for it and then, early that September, she was gone.

Listen at SoundClick
Listen at MP3Unsigned
View at YouTube 

THE FRUITS OF SILENCE (CHORUS FOR MOTHER TERESA) Copyright©1996 DamonMusic by Sean Damon Rohde. All rights reserved