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Canticles:
Songs and Rituals for the Easter and the May

I.As Adam In The Morning (May)
II.Not Dead But Sleeping (February)
III. For a Wedding (March)
IV. Looking for Eggs (April)
V. So He Is Risen (April)
VI. The Church By The Sea (April)
VII. Holy City (May)

Instrumentation: 1-1-1-1, 2-2-1-0, timp, perc, org, soli, sop, mezzo, narr, mixed chorus, str

Text: Michael Dennis Browne
Duration: 35 minutes

Canticles is a work inteded to celebrate the joy found n Easter and the entire Spring season.
It is a piece that constantly strives for expanding and stretching--both in the individual movement and throughout the work.
From the tentative, but hopeful question: "Where is your song?" to the victorious " So He is risen, and so we sing!" the musical drive is towards openness and a feeling of buoyancy. The joy foreshadowed in "As Adam in the Morning" is given its final expression in the "arrival" of "Holy City," which borrows many of the previous musical themes and uses them in a new-found manner.
--Program notes to the premiere performance

Publisher: Paulus Publications
Recordings: Promotional recording available

Commissioned by the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, Minneapolis

World Premiere: The Sanctuary Choir and Orchestra of Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, May 15, 1977
Narrator: Michael Dennis Browne
Conductor: Dr. Richard Waggoner