Ghosts 3

Ghosts 3 was written for the Continuum Consort in the summer of 2011. It is a piece I’ve wanted to write for years. The poetry was originally written (by me) in 1986 as epigrams for my set of guitar studies entitled Ghosts. Ghosts II, for soprano and piano was written in 1989 largely as an exercise to teach myself Finale when it first came out. It has never been performed. When the Continuum Consort asked me to write a piece for them in 2011 and proposed a premiere in November of that year, I realized that, given the time I had, I could only do a piece that I really wanted to write, that had been percolating for about 20 years. I also wanted to write to piece for the trio to say thank you for numerous performances of my trio Songs for Lyra.

Ghosts 3 is a set of miniatures for soprano, guitar and flute. As such, it fits squarely in my comfort zone as a composer. It is music that I wrote easily and with great enthusiasm. It is intended to be beautiful, evocative and somewhat thoughtless.

Ghosts 3 was premiered on Nov. 17, 2013 at the Victoria Conservatory of Music by the Continuum Consort — Elizabeth MacIsaac, soprano, Emily Nagelbach, flute and Douglas Hensley, guitar. The following recording is from my 2023 Centredisc CD, featuring Doreen Taylor-Claxton, soprano, Lara Deutsch, flute and Louis Trépanier, guitar.