This work originally started as a sort of musical joke or basic "sketch" while I was in college studying composition in 1996. I wrote the piece for a baritone singer friend of mine (now Fr. Stephan Baljian, the person to whom this piece is dedicated), as we both studied music at UMass/Amherst. I wrote several short movements (no longer than 5-10 bars each) for a Kyrie Eleison, a Christe Eleison, another Kyrie, and a Gloria. I had in mind the Organ Masses of Haydn, which provided utility in his day, as well as themselves poking fun at the stuffiness of the church institution with their brevity...

These 2 works are experimental pieces, written for TTBB soloists and percussion. I have chosen uncommon, obscure Old Testament texts as the basis for these settings. The story of Eglon and Ehud, found in Judges 3:15-22 is rarely if ever set to music, and is a vigorous, dramatic expression of the "very fat man" Eglon and his murder by Ehud. The second piece in this volume is a setting of most of Proverbs 26, set for TTBB soloists, finger cymbals, and drum set. This setting involves vocal percussion and scatting.

Are you a lightworker, spiritual energy healer, devotee, meditator, Reiki practitioner, chanter, or just a person on a consciously evolving spiritual path? Do you ever find that the expanded consciousness you experience while in your spiritual practices doesn't seem to be filtering into your everyday earthly life? Not only that, but do you get blissed out connecting to the higher realms, only to return to your earthplane life feeling ungrounded, spacy, irritable, and unable to translate your spiritual insights into flowing, effortless physical manifestation? You are not alone You've already...