In the Beginning…. is an opera about child-rearing. Scene 1, “In the Womb,” is a chorus of unborn fetuses singing of their growing body parts, from one cell all the way through birth. The accompaniment is a pre-recorded using electronic instruments, with the help of Mark Lipson and Mountain Laurel Music.
Our musical repertory teems with countless requiems, memorials and other works about death. I feel full of wonder and gratitude to have had the privilege of journeying through the relativity unknown musical territory of birth.
Much of the music is an eight-voice double canon. Although I don’t expect the listener to perceive this device, I hope that it generates the sense of inexorable growth essential to the subject matter.