Shards - album cover

Shards

Contemporary Classical Works

Sarah Wallin Huff composer

Release Date: August 11, 2023
Catalog #: NV6549
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Flute
Piano
Violin

Sarah Wallin Huff returns to Navona Records with SHARDS, a wide variety of compositions that explore life, love, death, and the philosophy and mysticism that make up the in-betweens. True to the unique identity of Wallin Huff’s admirable body of work, the compositions building SHARDS structure themselves around brilliantly original frameworks while also delivering a philosophical, thoughtful structure to the album. Wallin Huff sufficiently and spectacularly elaborates upon her identity as a self-described “stream-of-consciousness composer” in this contemplative and explorative journey, a comprehensive album sure to make waves with its mystical nature.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Ayre of Grievances Sarah Wallin Huff Mark Berger, viola; Julia Glenn, violin; Jessica Lizak, flute 5:13
02 DodecaFunky Sarah Wallin Huff Sarah Brady, flute; Yoko Hagino, piano 5:07
03 Of Roses and Lilies Sarah Wallin Huff Claire Fedoruk, soprano soloist; Lydia Wu, piano; Rachel Mellis, soprano recorder; Angela Wells, English horn; Women’s Chorus | Lauren Jorgensen, Kristina Valcarce, Brenda Carsey - soprano; Vanessa Alexis Gomez, Zineb Fikri, Niké St. Clair - alto 6:46
04 The Oracle Sarah Wallin Huff Agnes Schwartz, violin; Pola Benke, cello; Elizabeth LaCoste, flute & piccolo; Ryan Glass, clarinet; Masako Klassen, piano 13:32
05 Wabi-Sabi: I. Emergence Sarah Wallin Huff Juventas New Music Ensemble | Oliver Caplan, artistic director; Ryan Shannon, violin 1; Benjamin Carson, Violin 2; Lu Yu, viola; Minjin Chung, cello 4:43
06 Wabi-Sabi: II. Evolution Sarah Wallin Huff Juventas New Music Ensemble | Oliver Caplan, artistic director; Ryan Shannon, violin 1; Benjamin Carson, Violin 2; Lu Yu, viola; Minjin Chung, cello 2:55
07 Wabi-Sabi: III. Entropy Sarah Wallin Huff Juventas New Music Ensemble | Oliver Caplan, artistic director; Ryan Shannon, violin 1; Benjamin Carson, Violin 2; Lu Yu, viola; Minjin Chung, cello 4:59
08 Nevermore: I. The Raven Sarah Wallin Huff Charlotte Goode, viola; Yoko Hagino, piano 4:14
09 Nevermore: II. Annabel Lee Sarah Wallin Huff Charlotte Goode, viola; Yoko Hagino, piano 3:19
10 Nevermore: III. The Tell-Tale Heart Sarah Wallin Huff Charlotte Goode, viola; Yoko Hagino, piano 4:03
11 The Dark Glass Sinfonia (We See Through a Glass Darkly) Sarah Wallin Huff Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava | Jiří Petrdlík, conductor 7:40

Ayre of Grievances
Recorded February 7, 2023 at Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport MA
Session Producer & Engineer Brad Michel
Session Assistant Engineer Lucas Paquette
Editing & Mixing Brad Michel

DodecaFunky
Recorded September 29, 2020 at Futura Productions in Roslindale MA
Session Producer Brad Michel
Session Engineer John Weston
Session Assistant Engineer Jacob Steingart
Editing & Mixing Brad Michel

Of Roses and Lilies
Recorded August 7, 2021, March 5 & April 23, 2022 at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa CA
Session Producer & Engineer Sarah Wallin Huff
Session Assistant Engineer Simeon Goode

The Oracle
Recorded October 27, 2019 at Barefoot Recording Studio in Hollywood CA
Session Producer Sarah Wallin Huff
Session Engineer David Martinez

Wabi-Sabi, Nevermore
Recorded July 11 & 13, 2022 at Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport MA
Session Producer Lucas Paquette
Session Engineer Tom Stephenson
Editing & Mixing Lucas Paquette

The Dark Glass Sinfonia
Recorded February 26, 2019 at Dům Kultury in Ostrava, Czech Republic
Session Producer Jan Košulič
Session Co-producer Bob Lord
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák
Session Assistant Engineer Maroš Hlatký
Editing & Mixing Lucas Paquette

Mastering Melanie Montgomery

Executive Producer Bob Lord

A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Sullivan

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
Production Director Levi Brown
Production Manager Martina Watzková

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Morgan Hauber
Publicity Patrick Niland

Artist Information

Sarah Wallin Huff

Sarah Wallin Huff

Composer

Sarah Wallin Huff is a music lecturer at California Polytechnic University of Pomona, teaching “History of Technology in Music,” for which she published an original textbook with Great River Learning in 2019. She received her M.A. in Music Composition at Claremont Graduate University in 2008, and was the Professor of Composition and Advanced Theory — as well as conductor of the Chamber Ensemble — at The Master’s University in Santa Clarita from 2012-2016.

Sarah Brady

Flutist

Called “enchanting” by the Boston Globe, flutist Sarah Brady is sought after across the country as a soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher. An avid promoter of new music, she has premiered and recorded new music from many of today’s top composers. Recent projects have included premieres of new solo flute and electronic music from Elena Ruehr, Andy Vores, Marti Epstein, Reinaldo Moya and John Mallia, and Curtis Hughes, as well as music for flute and strings from Marcos Balter, Nicholas Vines, and Johnathan Bailey Holland. Her solo, chamber, and over 50 orchestral recordings can be heard on the Albany, Naxos, Oxingale, Cantaloupe and BMOP/Sound music labels. As a leading interpreter of contemporary music, she was invited to read and record new music commissioned by Yo Yo Ma for his Silk Road Project at Tanglewood.

Yoko Hagino

Yoko Hagino

Pianist

Yoko Hagino was born and raised in Japan, where she began her piano studies at the age of 4. As a child, she performed her own compositions, which took her to Europe and the United States, including performances as a concert soloist with the Czech Symphony, the University of Southern California Symphony, Kyoto City Symphony, and Ensemble Orchestra Kanazawa. Hagino has appeared as a soloist with Osaka Century Orchestra, UMass Boston Chamber Orchestra, Key West Symphony Orchestra, White Rabbit Sinfonietta, and has also performed various piano recitals ranging from the music of Bach to contemporary repertoire. Hagino is a prize winner of the Steinway Society Piano Competition, the First International Chamber Music Competition, the All-Japan Selective Competition of the International Mozart Competition, and Chamber Music Competition of Japan.

Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava

Orchestra

The Janáček Philharmonic is a world-class symphony orchestra based in Ostrava, Czech Republic and an emerging figure on the international performance scene. With over 100 top-level musicians, the orchestra aims to introduce unique, quality repertoire while showcasing their own recognizable sound.

Jiří Petrdlík

Conductor

Jiří Petrdlík (b. 1977) is appreciated as one of the most respectable conductors of his generation. He studied piano, trombone, and conducting — 1995–2000 at Prague Conservatory, and 2000–2005 at Academy of Performing Arts Prague — with Hynek Farkač, Miroslav Košler, Miriam Němcová, Radomil Eliška, and Tomáš Koutník, and took part in the masterclasses of the New York Philharmonic Principal Conductor Kurt Masur and the BBC Philharmonic Principal Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. Petrdlík also successfully took part in several competitions, including the Donatella Flick Conductor Competition in London.

Group photo of Juventas New Music ensemble, with members holding their instruments.

Juventas New Music Ensemble

Ensemble

Juventas New Music Ensemble is a contemporary chamber group with a special focus on emerging voices. Juventas shares classical music as a vibrant, living art form. They bring audiences music from a diverse array of composers that live in today’s world and respond to our time. Since its founding in 2005, Juventas has performed the music of more than 300 living composers. The ensemble has earned a reputation as a curator with a keen eye for new talent. It opens doors for composers with top-notch professional performances that present their work in the best possible light.

Mark Berger

Mark Berger

viola

Mark Berger joined the Lydian String Quartet as violist in 2014 and is associate professor of the practice at Brandeis University. In addition to his work with the quartet, Berger frequently performs with many of Boston’s finest orchestras and chamber ensembles including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Worcester Chamber Music Society, and Music at Eden’s Edge. He has recently appeared as a guest artist with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Boston Musica Viva, and Radius Ensemble. Strongly devoted to the performance of new music, Berger has performed with many of Boston’s new music ensembles including Sound Icon, Boston Musica Viva, Dinosaur Annex, Ludovico Ensemble, and ALEA III. In the summers, Berger performs at the Newport Festival and is string chamber music coordinator at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

Also an acclaimed composer, Berger’s works have been presented locally by Boston Musica Viva, the New York New Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, Xanthos Ensemble, Music at Eden’s Edge, QX String Quartet, and the Lydian String Quartet, as well as nationally and internationally by the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, Ensemble Permutaciones (Mexico), and the Hellenic Ensemble of Contemporary Music (Greece). His compositions have received awards and recognition from the League of Composers/ISCM, ASCAP, and the Rapido! Composition Competition and he has received commissioning grants from NEFA and the Brannen-Cooper Fund.

Julia Glenn

violin

Boston native Julia Glenn has been hailed as “remarkable,” “gripping,” and “a brilliant soloist” by the New York Times and performs internationally on modern and baroque violins. She recently joined the Lydian Quartet after teaching for three years at the Tianjin Juilliard School, where she served as violin faculty and was a member of the Tianjin Juilliard Ensemble.

Glenn has appeared on stages including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall, the Beijing Recital Hall, Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and Shanghai Concert Hall. She has recently performed with the Shanghai Camerata, New York New Music Ensemble, ACRONYM, Cantata Profana, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, and Soloists of New England. In January of 2016 she gave the world premiere of Milton Babbitt’s violin concerto to critical acclaim; her article on the work was published in 2022 in Contemporary Music Review.

With a deep interest in exploring and sharing the music and culture of China, Glenn enjoys drawing on her backgrounds in phonology and Chinese language to open up new avenues in perception and performance. Her doctoral dissertation was titled “Hearing in Tone: A Phonetic Approach to the Analysis and Performance of Chinese Contemporary Music.” As the recipient of Juilliard’s 2019 John Erksine Faculty Prize, she is currently working with Chen Yi on a video project to commission and film dance choreography for Chen’s Memory. This past summer she recorded a solo album of new and recent music by Chinese and Chinese-speaking composers. She has presented talks and lecture-performances on her work at the Harvard Shanghai Center, Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theatre, Harvard University, Shanghai Conservatory, Beijing Central Conservatory, and Juilliard.

Glenn has previously recorded for Spice Classics Records and Swan Studio. She is a 2018 graduate of Juilliard’s C.V. Starr doctoral program, where she worked with Joseph Lin, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Cynthia Roberts. In 2013 she obtained her master’s from New England Conservatory with James Buswell, and in 2012 her bachelor’s in linguistics magna cum laude from Harvard University. She plays a 2018 violin by Benjamin Ruth.

Jessica Lizak

flute

Dr. Jessica Lizak has rapidly established herself as one of Boston’s most versatile young flutists. The Boston Music Intelligencer has described her performances as full of “youthful energy and rhythmic drive,” as well as possessing “light and free precision…a nearly jazz-like casualness.” She is principal flute of the Atlantic Symphony and Marsh Chapel Collegium, as well as section flute of the Orchestra of Indian Hill, all of which she has been a concert soloist. She also performs with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Portland Symphony, Back Bay Chorale, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, Opera Boston, Masterworks Chorale, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Collage New Music, and Zamir Chorale, among others. Nationally, she has joined the Gidon Kremer’s Kremerata Baltica, New World Symphony in Miami Beach, and the Albany Symphony (NY).

She has been a selected fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center (MA), Music Academy of the West (CA), Domaine Forget (Canada), and Interlochen (MI). She was awarded top prizes in several competitions, including the Pappoutsakis Flute Competition, Myrna Brown International Flute Competition, Bohemians Club of the Detroit Symphony Concerto Competition, and was a multiple winner of the Boston University Departmental Award for outstanding musical achievements. She has been a soloist at both the National Flute Convention and the Greater Boston Flute Association’s Flute Fair, and she has performed as a chamber musician on WGBH and WCRB. Her discography includes three commercial recordings available through the BSO website: a live performance of the American premiere of Carter’s opera What Next? conducted by James Levine, the first BSO release of live performances of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and a commemorative album of Elliott Carter’s works performed at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. She has also extensively recorded with BMOP, Boston’s premier orchestra for newly composed and experimental orchestral works. She can also be heard on Natalie Merchant’s album Leave Your Sleep, and in an upcoming children’s production in collaboration with John Lithgow.

Claire Fedoruk

soprano

Dr. Claire Fedoruk (BM, Pacific Lutheran University, MM, Eastman School of Music, DMA, University of Southern California) is a scholar-practitioner whose research is focused on vocal music of the Renaissance and twenty-first centuries. Dr. Fedoruk’s passion is the intersection of scholarship and performance and its impact on those who practice both. A professional soprano in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Dr. Fedoruk has collaborated as a soloist and ensemble artist with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and is a Grammy winner for her contribution to the Los Angeles Chamber Singers Padilla: Sun of Justice (2005) recording. She is active as a recording artist and can be heard on three dozen film soundtracks, including solo cues in Heaven is For Real (2014) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), as well as one the new 100 Years Disney Logo (2022) as well as solo and small ensemble work in the following recordings: Steve Reich: You Are Variations (2004), and Daniel Variations (2006), Nico Muhly: A Good Understanding (2010), David Lang: the national anthems – (2014) and Sarah Wallin-Huff: Shards (2023).

Dr. Fedoruk has collaborated as a soloist with numerous early music groups such as the Concord Ensemble, Musical Angelica, Gravitacion, Tesserae, Bach Collegium of San Diego and Stuttgart Festival Ensemble. As a scholar, she is currently a member of American Musicological Society’s Pedagogy Study Group and was an evaluation committee member for the conference Teaching Music History (2016-2018). Additionally, Dr. Fedoruk has presented her work at several conferences, including Historical Performance: Theory, Practice, and Interdisciplinarity (Historical Performance Institute, Bloomington, IN), the Music and the Moving Image Conference (New York University NYC), the New Zealand Musicological Society Conference (University of Auckland, NZ) and at Music and the Sonic Arts Conference (Karlesruhe, DE). In May of 2019 Dr. Fedoruk was an invited guest lecturer for the Research Quorum at Newcastle University.  Dr. Fedoruk is Professor of Musicology at Azusa Pacific University, where she teaches at the graduate and undergraduate levels, coaches historical performance practice and served as the Director of Graduate Programs from 2015-2018. Dr. Fedoruk is at work on several articles regarding dynamic and Socratic methods of teaching musicology, mimesis in George Crumb’s Apparition, and the inclusion of classically based improvisation as part of university curriculum. Currently, Dr. Fedoruk is touring a project internationally: the Lagrime di San Pietro, staged by Peter Sellars, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. From 2016-2023, she premiered this staged and memorized project at Disney Concert Hall in in Los Angeles, as well as the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Melbourne Recital Hall in Melbourne, Australia, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, in Mexico, the Barbican Center and Sage Gateshead in the UK, Cité de La Musique in Paris, France, Town Hall in Auckland, New Zealand, and the Salzburg Festspiele in Salzburg, Austria. 

Charlotte Goode

viola

Charlotte Goode is a violist who has been praised for her passion, drive, and deep musicality. Goode graduated from Azusa Pacific University with a Bachelors of Music in Viola Performance on a generous academic and musical scholarship and is currently a student of Gina Coletti and Diana Wade. Previously, Goode was a student of Lynn Grants and Jonathan Moerschel, and has performed in masterclasses with Gina Coletti, Ben Ullery, Karen Dreyfus, and Paul Coletti.

Goode is a highly sought after violist for the performance of new music, and has worked closely with contemporary composers such as Byron Adams, Simeon Goode, Robert Gross, Sarah Wallin Huff, Maria Newman, and Julia Adolphe on numerous projects. Notably, in the spring of 2019, Goode was the second violist ever to perform Julia Adolphe’s Unearth, with special permission from Adolphe and Cynthia Phelps – principal violist of the New York Philharmonic.

Goode has attended several summer music festivals. In 2019, she was a fellowship student at Festival Napa Valley, where she played in orchestra and chamber settings alongside members of the Chicago Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Symphony, and the San Francisco Ballet, performed in a pops group to accompany recording artist Seal, and played under conductors such as Martin West and Joel Revzen. In 2018, she attended Music Mountain Academy in Falls Village CT, where she coached with the Verona Quartet, Peter Winograd of the American Quartet, and Charles Neidich. In her high school years, Goode attended the Idyllwild Chamber Festival, through which she made her Walt Disney Hall debut. As a recording musician, Goode was featured on two cues in the 2015 Disney Film Tomorrowland at the personal invitation of conductor Tim Simonec and composer Michael Giacchino.

A gifted educator, Goode has maintained a large private studio of young violinists and violists since the summer of 2015, as well as faculty positions at the Azusa Conservatory and Music and Arts Glendora. Goode’s students have earned top chair positions in school and youth orchestras in the Southern California Area. In both 2018 and 2019, Goode volunteered as an assistant at the SoCal ViolaFest, working with over 100 young violists in Los Angeles of all ages and levels. In the summer of 2019, Goode was an assistant coach at the Colburn Summer Chamber Intensive, coaching advanced high school chamber music students alongside pedagogues such as Gina Coletti, Sandy Yamamato, and Pepi Pilibossian.

Goode currently resides in Santa Clarita CA with her husband, composer Simeon Goode and their cats Berlioz and Primrose.

Notes

Composed during the worldwide Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020, this fierce work for violin, viola, and flute illustrates the need during such times to unleash pent-up frustrations, fear, sorrow, and anger. The incessant, rapid rhythms and violent articulations don’t seem to find relief until a point in the middle of the work, when the realization hits that there is nothing to be done except to collapse on our living room couches, to “shelter in place,” and wait for the return to “normal” that never seems to come. Thus, locked in a state of restlessness, the music builds again to the frenzied madness of the beginning, only to end with a rush of “hands thrown into the air.”

— Sarah Wallin Huff

A funky solo for flute with piano accompaniment, this intense and spastic work exploits various manipulations of a 12-tone row — dodecaphony — and sets the serial melody to a backdrop of hard bop and swing. While it is a flurry of virtuosity, DodecaFunky nonetheless convinces itself not to be taken too seriously.

— Sarah Wallin Huff

Completed in 2013, this work is a romantic expression based on King Solomon’s “Song of Songs.” Flirting with musical and dramatic elements of medieval Europe and ancient Greek theatre, Of Roses and Lilies features the solo soprano in the role of The Woman. She expresses her love, devotion, and delight toward her Lover while the Daughters of Jerusalem — portrayed by the women’s chorus, like that of the commentary of a Greek chorus — listen and engage with The Woman in her tales touting the glories of her Beloved.

The work unfolds in three sections: the first introduces the characters and their vivid emotions; during the second, The Woman shares a tale of her Lover calling her to escape with him into the night: “For the winter is past and the rain gone…” For a moment, she hesitates, she wonders if she is too late, only to find that he is still waiting for her, encouraging her with words of adoration; the third section returns to the original themes, yet gains an expression of great power and fervency as The Woman’s love for her Beloved utterly transforms her.

— Sarah Wallin Huff

Written in 2016, The Oracle was constructed from a framework of 50 randomly drawn tarot cards, lending the work both an element of chance — in that the process of drawing the cards and their placement in five tarot spreads was random — and an element of “foreordained knowledge” — or pre-compositional structure, based on interpretations of those their cards and their positions. Its distinct aural experience is the culmination of classic aleatorism and modern formula.

Each instrument of the quintet represents an important part of the tarotscape: the violin, cello, flute, and clarinet represent the elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, respectively. Each element and its instrumental representative interact with each other in the same way that our desires, experiences, and moods interact within ourselves. The piano represents all the Major Arcana of the deck: the major milestones we encounter in each of our lives. Its octaves are segmented to represent different branches of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life where each card falls. In other words, the closer to the Divine Source a card sits, the higher on the piano its melody lies, and vice versa.

The Oracle has thus emerged as a multi-faceted, deeply layered, story-driven reflection of the human condition. It unfolds into an engaging tale of emotion, power, and character that may be interpreted in countless ways, according to the listener’s personal experience.

— Sarah Wallin Huff

The aesthetic and metaphysical ideals that Japanese wabi-sabi encapsulates include simplicity, naturalness, and an acceptance of reality. This string quartet seeks to illustrate the overall nature of wabi-sabi.

At both the beginning of Movement 1, “Emergence,” and the ending of Movement 3, “Entropy,” notes are thought of as specks of Potentiality that are randomly evolving from or devolving to Nothingness. Movement 2, “Evolution,” at the center point of this universal journey, expresses a concerted effort of diverse elements to create structure and meaning.

The three movements carry the listener through the wabi-sabi experience in the following ways, as expressed by Leonard Koren in “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, & Philosophers.”
I. “Emergence”: “Wabi-sabi acknowledges that just as it is important to know when to make choices, it is also important to know when not to make choices: to let things be.”
II. “Evolution”: “…nothingness itself—instead of being empty space, as in the West—is alive with possibility. In metaphysical terms, wabi-sabi suggests that the universe is in constant motion toward or away from potential.”
III. “Entropy”: “…you must pay maximum attention to everything happening at this very moment: be here now.”

Ideally, every single performance should be different from the last and contain various elements of surprise to even the performers. The composer hopes that musicians will enjoy the challenge, the individual freedom, and unexpected moments ready to be discovered again and again in Wabi Sabi.

— Sarah Wallin Huff

Composed between 2019 and 2021 for violist Charlotte Goode, Nevermore is a gothic suite based on three classic works by Edgar Allen Poe:
I. “The Raven”:
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary… Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow, from my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore… Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore! Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”

The Raven arrives and seems to mock our narrator’s sorrow—that of seeking after his long lost Lenore—and it drives him further mad with every answer from the Raven being “Nevermore.”

II. “Annabel Lee”:
“…this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.”

The movement begins with the pure innocence of childhood love, only to be confounded in the frustration of losing the beloved Annabel Lee, presumably to the jealousy of the angels above who saw the lovers’ happiness and killed the beautiful girl in retribution.

Nonetheless, “neither the angels in Heaven above nor the demons down under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”

III. “The Tell-Tale Heart”:
Each section of Movement Three depicts a graphic moment from this harrowing tale:
Intro and A: “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me… I think it was his eye! Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold…”

B: “I undid the lantern cautiously…And this I did for seven long nights…but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.”

C: “Upon the eighth night…a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider…fell full upon the vulture eye. …for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst.”

D: “I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done… He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more. I dismembered the corpse. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings.”

E: “There entered three men, who introduced themselves…as officers of the police…It was a low, dull, quick sound… Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides…”

F: “I foamed –I raved –I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. And still, the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled.”

G: “They were making a mockery of my horror!- this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!… I admit the deed! –tear up the planks! here, here! –It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

— Sarah Wallin Huff

“We See Through A Glass Darkly…” The Dark Glass Sinfonia for symphony orchestra was written in 2017. Built upon an integrated set of hexachordal formulae, it blends the concepts of free atonality with modal harmony. In doing so, it is meant to represent the enigmatic and ongoing, emotional flux of the Soul.

— Sarah Wallin Huff