fifteen songs for high voice and piano

"LoveSongs is a collection of fifteen songs written in May, 2004, and premiered by tenor Stephen Oosting and pianist Robert Spillman at Peak Performance in Montclair, New Jersey, in April, 2005. The collection is dedicated to my wife, Paula Stark.

I chose poems to set, each of which expressed one of a large range of perspectives on the subject of love; from the simple and lyrical, the angry and agitated, the quixotic and mysterious, the regretful and sad, the ironic and detached, to the impassioned and inspired. I attempted to compose each one in a single day, striving for a simple, immediate, and visceral connection between music and text. The songs can be done as a cycle, individually, or excerpted in groups selected by the performer.

The sixteenth and last song in the collection, SAGA Love, was composed a couple of years later, in 2006, at the request of Stephen Oosting, who needed an encore song for piano four-hands fior a concert he presented at Moscow Conservatory (thus the small quote from the Sabre Dance. SAGA is a Brish organization of senior citizens quite equivalent to the AARP in the United States. The poem's author, Bee Rawlinson, graciously granted her permission for the use of this text. This song expresses a view of love definitely not touched upon by the other songs (!) and I'm delighted to be able to include it in this collection." (Robert Livingston Aldridge, Montclair, NJ, January, 2011)