Today I present my original composition, DREAM OF BYGONE YOUTH.  I completed this piece in 2011 and scored it for piano.  Below is a screenshot of the title page from the autograph score:

I composed this piece in recognition of my passage into middle age.

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DREAM OF BYGONE YOUTH, Copyright©2011 DamonMusic by Sean Damon Rohde.  All rights reserved

Today I present my original composition, TRIBUTE TO GREYFRIARS BOBBY.  I completed this piece in 2010 and scored it for string quartet.  Below is a screenshot of the title page from the autograph score:

Bobby belonged to John Gray, who worked for the Edinburgh City Police as a night watchman, and the two were inseparable for approximately two years.  On 8 February 1858, Gray died of tuberculosis. He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in the Old Town of Edinburgh. Bobby, who survived Gray by fourteen years, is said to have spent the rest of his life sitting on his master's grave. Another account has it that he spent a great deal of time at Gray's grave, but that he left regularly for meals at a restaurant beside the graveyard, and may have spent colder winters in nearby houses.
In 1867, when it was argued that a dog without an owner should be destroyed, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir William Chambers—who was also a director of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—paid for Bobby's license, making him the responsibility of the city council.

Bobby died in 1872 and could not be buried within the cemetery itself, since it was and remains consecrated ground. He was buried instead just inside the gate of Greyfriars Kirkyard, not far from John Gray's grave.

--Wikipedia

True or not, this story serves to remind all of us just how blessed we are by this great gift in life--the dog.

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TRIBUTE TO GREYFRIARS BOBBY, Copyright©2010 DamonMusic by Sean Damon Rohde.  All rights reserved