Piano,Vocal,Voice - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.1081893 By Francis Osentowski, music Jerry McElveen, text. By Francis Osentowski, DMA University of North Texas. Arranged by Original composition. Contemporary,Contest,Festival,Instructional,Multicultural,Opera,World. Score. 7 pages. Francis Osentowski #686005. Published by Francis Osentowski (A0.1081893). Eighteen in Italy is song one of a four-part song cycle. 1. Eighteen in Italy 2. Caregiver 3. Colosseum 4. David. The beautiful poems by former Richland College Professor, Jerry McElveen describes a tour of Italy by a group of faculty and families. In a beautiful ballroom in Rome on the last day of the tour, Jerry surprised all of us by reciting poems he had created during the tour. When he began presenting his texts...I immediately knew those words were perfect for a musical setting! Our pieces have been performed often throughout the DFW area. Marsha Anderson is a North Lake College faculty member who was an opera singer in Italy for decades and later taught a student credit trip to Italy. You will her perform at University of Texas Arlington with me at the piano. I now think each of the songs should slow down a few clicks to breath more for the singer. The talented young soprano, Erin Alcorn performed the cycle more recently and both performer and my music received excellent reviews from the Dallas Morning News music critic, Scott Cantrell. Several performers have told me that the songs are very comfortable to perform, and the music is suitable for young singers. All four songs are available to purchase at this site.

Choral Piano,Vocal,Voice - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.953857 By Francis Osentowski piano, Marsha Anderson, Soprano. By Francis Osentowski, Music Francis Osentowski, DMA University of North Texas, and Text, Jerry McElveen. Contemporary,Multicultural,Standards,World. Score. 7 pages. Francis Osentowski #6095999. Published by Francis Osentowski (A0.953857). LETTERS FROM A POET IN ITALY -  A song cycle in four movements. I. Eighteen in Italy II. Caregiver                      III. Colosseum IV. David 2007The songs in my cycle are for voice and piano. They are setting of four poems by Jerry McElveen, Professor Emeritus at Richland College of the Dallas College  system. The title refers to texts written during a tour of Italy by a group of college faculty and spouses.  On the tour we visited several historic sites around Italy. At the end of the tour, professor McElveen surprised us by reciting a series of poems written during that trip. On hearing his performance, I felt his words were musical and perfect texts to be set to music.  The Letters from a Poet in Italy song cycle is the result of our collaboration and has been performed numerous times in the DFW area. A recent performance was sponsored by the art song organization Voces Intimae: the Art of Song. The concert was reviewed by Scott Cantrell Music/Art Critic for the Dallas Morning News and awarded a positive review.  The audio recordings feature soprano Marsha Anderson with my piano accompaniment. Marsha had a distinguished career as an opera singer in Italy for 20 years before returning to Texas as director of the North Lake College Study in Italy program. (She is featured on all recordings except Mvt. III COLOSSEUM. That audio is a synthesizer version). 

Piano,Vocal,Voice - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.1081918 By Performance of Eighteen in Italy by Marsha Anderson , Francis Osentowski, Piano. By Francis Osentowski, DMA University of North Texas, Jerry McElveen, Texts. Arranged by Original composition. Contemporary,Contest,Festival,Instructional,Opera. Score. 29 pages. Francis Osentowski #686049. Published by Francis Osentowski (A0.1081918). LETTERS FROM A POET IN ITALY is a song cycle for soprano and soprano. This site includes of all four songs: 1. Eighteen in Italy 2. Caregiver 3. Colosseum 4. DAVID The cycle is my setting of poems by Jerry McElveen, my friend and an awesome poet and professor at Richland College. Jerry wrote several poems during a tour of Italy made up of a group of faculty and spouses. On our last day in Rome...he surprised everyone by performing his new works. The minute he started reading I knew this would be a great text to set to music. This cycle has been performed often in the DFW Tx. area...first by Marsha Anderson, my colleague at North Lake College and later by the young soprano Erin Acorn. Marsha earned a living in Italy for over 20 years as an opera singer and taught me lots of valuable details about the substiles of composing for this vocal style. You can hear her beautiful voice on recordings we made at a performance in the concert hall at UTA Arlington. In retrospect, I like the tempos to relax more than these recordings, so the vocal lines have more time to breath. The cycle also received a positive review by the famous music critic for the Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell. Thank you to Scott! I kept the vocal lines away from extreme high and low pitches...and several singers have told me the voice lines are very comfortable for them. Singable by professionals AND young sopranos.

Piano,Vocal,Voice - Level 2 - Digital Download SKU: A0.1487844 By Ensemble Nuria and from the album : Illumination II: Italian-Jewish Music of Solace & Hope. By Traditional Jewish Italian (Ferrara). Arranged by Bari Moscovitz. Early Music,Folk,Historic,Jewish,Traditional. Score. 4 pages. Ensemble Nuria #1064783. Published by Ensemble Nuria (A0.1487844). ’Lecha Dodi’A lyrical piyyut to welcome Shabbat, this radiant melody for Lecha Dodi (transl:‘Come,my beloved’) is from the communities of Venezia and Ferrara and has existed asperformed here for over 300 years (as partially notated by B.Marcello in L’Estro PoeticoArmonico, Venezia 1723).

Piano,Vocal,Voice - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.940350 Composed by Stephen Weber. Contemporary,Standards. Score. 30 pages. Dr. Stephen Weber #3077199. Published by Dr. Stephen Weber (A0.940350). Quips, Quotes, and Quibbles is a set of eighteen very brief compositions for medium voice and piano, based on humorous quotes about music or musicians, or by musicians themselves. Each selection utilizes compositional styles to represent the composer quoted or referenced. They can be performed in their entirety as a set (16 minutes), or can be extracted and performed in smaller sets. They invariably induce laughter in the audience when performed live. Though copyright permission was not necessary for use of the texts, the composer secured permission to use them from two publishers, who simply requested that there publications be referenced in the score. These are also excellent pieces for composers and music theory students to analyze in order to study compositional techniques used. Dr. Weber is a member of ASCAP and has his own YouTube channel, at which you can see some of his original compositions performed, or him performing his works in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. .