William Mac Davis

New Song Cycle

Posted on March 8, 2025     Leave a Comment

I knew I wanted to be a composer in the elementary school when I was first taught the basic rudiments of reading music. Though I considered other paths from time to time, music kept returning to the forefront. I was fortunate to have a career where I taught music theory (another passion of mine) and was able to have the time and financial support to pursue my creative efforts. One of the pivotal aspects of my career was the opportunity to work with supportive colleagues who were also outstanding performers. They are too numerous to name here (I would not want to overlook anyone), but a number of them are mentioned by name on other pages of this site.

Inevitably, however, things changed. I retired, as did many of them, and we all got older. Once the pandemic hit in 2020, I lost touch with many of my former colleagues. The reason I bring this up is that this had a profound effect on my work as a composer. Without close daily contact with performing colleagues, I found myself composing less and less. As I am not an outstanding performer myself, I had always been dependent on friends, colleagues, and professionals in the Dallas/Fort Worth musical community to bring my music to life. I still had plenty of ideas, but found it difficult to bring them to completion. As I told a friend once, I have plenty of beginnings, but not many middles and endings.

While most of the above is still true, I am pleased to report that I am back composing again and am very excited about putting some middles and ends with my existing beginnings. In January I returned to an idea of a song cycle that I had done some preliminary work on in 2019 and am pleased to announce its completion. The cycle consists of settings of five poems about roses and is entitled “She Sets the World on Fire” which is a line from the second song, “The Rose,” by Christina Rossetti. The other poems in the set are by Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns, and, of course, Edmund Waller. (One could not have a set of rose poems without “Go, Lovely Rose”).

Current projects include settings of two E. E. Cummings poems for clarinet, voice, and piano and a set of seven piano pieces entitled “Souvenirs.” I have no firm performance possibilities yet, but I expect they will come about. If you are a performer and are interested in any of my works, please contact me through this site and I will respond promptly. It is good to be making music again!