Opus number: op. 79

Title: Dream within a Dream

Miracles (Walt Whitman)
A Cradle Song (William Blake)
A Dream Within a Dream (Edgar Allan Poe)
There came a wind like a bugle (Emily Dickinson)
Dover Beach (Matthew Arnold)

Five songs based on texts by Whitman, Blake, Poe, Dickinson, and Arnold

Instrumentation: soprano and piano

Dedication: Robin Reinert

Date written: 2006

Length: fifteen minutes

Premiere performance: October 15, 2006, NEC’s Jordan Hall, D’Anna Fortunato and Larry Bell

Subsequent performances: March 30, 2007, Robin Reinert, soprano, and Larry Bell, piano. 29^th Annual Seminar on Contemporary Music For the Young, The Rivers Music School, Weston, MA

Program Notes: Dream Within a Dream, Op. 79, is a song cycle of five diverse poets: Whitman, Blake, Poe, Dickinson, and Arnold. The songs were specifically written for my composition student Robin Reinert (who is also a fine soprano) in the spring of 2006. The songs were first performed in October 2006 by D’Anna Fortunato and myself in Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory. Later in 2007, Robin Reinert and I performed the songs while I was composer-in-residence at the Rivers School in the spring of 2007.