Program Note:

Most people have roommate stories of sharing one’s life rather intimately, sometimes even with strangers: eating together, studying together, even brushing one’s teeth together. Katie Burchfield and I were already close friends when we moved in together, and soon evolved a nightly ritual. Katie improvised a sweet lullaby with the handful of German words that she knew, and would sing to me many versions of that melody. Thus, this lullaby, or Wiegenlied, began as an inside joke, a surprise for her to play on her instrument of choice, the organ, and quickly turned into a piece — a set of variations, a nocturnal adieu.

Duration: c. 7 minutes

Premiere:

Katie Burchfield, organ
March 23, 2013 at the University of Notre Dame on the Paul Fritts Organ.