The Coming of Age

For soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano
  • Program Notes

    My song cycle, The Coming of Age, was written to pre-existing poems of Denis Johnson. The four poems that comprise the cycle come from three different collections of Mr. Johnson’s poetry: “The Dry, Dry Land. Here” and “Upon Waking” are from the collection The Man Among the Seals; “The Coming of Age” is from the collection The Incognito Lounge; and “Poem” is from the collection The Veil. In spite of their origins during different periods of Mr. Johnson’s output, the four poems all center on the theme of love, its solace and transformative power. This common thread, as well as the beauty and directness of their language, is what immediately drew me to these particular poems, and led me to form them into a set. Three of the poems also contain musical imagery which I found provocative and intriguing.

    The music of The Coming of Age is not particularly abstract, as it is in most of my works, but is very much adapted to the poems, their meanings and imagery. In one sense, a composer sets a text like a jeweler sets a stone, looking for the right musical character and mood to show the poem off in all its facets. For example, the poem “The Dry, Dry Land. Here”, with its strange arboreal imagery, needed a preternatural musical evocation. Likewise, “Poem” is so infused with a kind of vernacular iconography that it cried out for setting in an eclectic musical style which I chose to center around idioms of modern jazz.

Reviews

  • New Music Connoisseur

    “…a composer of lesser sensibility than Mr. Festinger could have drowned such words in a soupy line… Instead, he has kept a delicate balance between the lusty emotions of physical love and the subtle variety of colors such emotions produce… intent on quietly luminous mood changes.”

    – Mark Greenfest
  • A Rave for New Music

    “If you are looking for beautiful 21st century American music, look no further… This album holds four compositions performed by New York New Music Ensemble… Festinger creates mesmerizing textures. Slowly emerging themes, gently woven from snippets of melody, gradually accelerate and collide like swirling eddies of dissonant color. Animated changes in dynamic, tremolos in the strings, and skittering piano figures create tension and drama. Silence your cell phone, find a quiet spot, and listen.”

    – Karen E. Moorman Read Complete Review
  • Ordering Information

    For pricing info and to order this work, please fill out the form below:

Video

Collage The Coming of Age