His Name (2021)

Instrumentation: 2 Tenors, Flute, Clarinet, & Piano

Difficulty: Medium Advanced

Duration: 9’30”

Currently unavailable for purchase.

Commissioned by No Divide KC

Despite holding my identity as a gay man very close to my heart, I had yet to write music directly addressing it until His Name. This piece is, in the truest sense, my passion project. I began formulating the ideas for it in the summer of 2020, never really committing to writing it as I figured the instrumentation was too specific to guarantee it would ever be played. For months it sat in the back of my mind until my proposal to write the piece was accepted by the fantastic organization No Divide KC. As the theme of the concert the work was commissioned for was “vulnerability in the concert space,” I felt this was the perfect opportunity to finally write the work and to my delight, the panel agreed.

This work is a setting of excerpts from Alexander Pope’s poem Eloisa to Abelard, which tells the story of a forbidden love affair through a series of letters from the former to the latter. Rather than set the poem in totality (which would be of Wagnerian length) and reflecting the original story, I wanted to select and assemble three stanzas to act as a conversation between two gay lovers. The piece is demarcated into three clear sections, but the material within each section is very loosely structured and composed instinctually. In the first section, the two are separated from one another and aware of their situation, reflecting longingly on their time together. In the second, they become lost in memory and become blissfully unaware of their separation; for a brief time they are together in the labyrinths of memory. This fantasy cannot last, however, and the veil is lifted in the final section, reprising musical material from the first section as they come to terms with their unfortunate reality.

In writing this piece, I was struck by how well some of the text translates to a queer subtext. Lines such as “Too soon they taught me ’twas no sin to love” and “Nor envy them, that heav’n I lose for thee” take on a different meaning to members of the LGBTQ+ community who have all, at some point or another, been told by religious institutions that the simple act of being themselves is a sin that would damn them to hell. In spite of this, I don’t quite consider this a protest piece, though some will just for its subject matter. Instead, I see it as a work that celebrates queer love in all its joys and sorrows.