For those that know me well, for someone to say that I'm passionate about the big cats and their plight in the universe is putting it so mildly as to be absurd. As music is yet another portion of passion in my life, I felt compelled to try attempt to show one through the eyes of the other.

I am a much better arranger and conductor than I am a composer. In any case, I have grand designs to eventually compose and entire "suite" or "anthem", and this particular composition is just the very begining, or the theme, if you will. I call it the "hymn" as it's only four voices, and follows the semi-rigid A, A', B, A'' format of hymns.

The idea was that it should follow along with the "seven stages of life" (birth, learning, hunting, feeding, procreating, sleeping, and finally, dying) through music. Most were pretty obvious in the style and content possibilities, but I had a bit of trouble with the "feeding" and "procreating" categories, so in the end, I decided on a five movement suite.

Originally, it was going to be called "Extinction is Forever", but that seemed a bit dark and dreary for what I had in mind. While the topic, extinction, was first and foremost in my mind, it wasn't really about that so much as an anthem dedicated to the sheer magnificence of the animal kingdom. After much though, prayer, and meditation on the subject, I came up with a different title: "Forever: an Anthem for the Animals".

"Forever", in this case, can mean many things, as I think each person that should ever hear this completed work - whenever that might happen - will hear something different. In it, they will see their own, particular animal. For me, it's tigers. I love cougars dearly, and leopards too, but I still see tigers when I listen to this or think about the music-to-come. "Forever" can mean "extinction", as for many animals of this fragile planet, this is exactly what looms on the horizon. But in this case, as in, what I /meant/ in that choice of word, was that for many people, there is no greater majesty in all the heavens and Earth than gaze upon that animal of their heart's deepest passion. For me, it's the big cats. Pick a cat. Any cat. It doesn't matter; they all fill me with the same awesome wonder. So for me, "forever" is that I have been forever altered by their existence, both in the world and in my life. I have been forever changed. Even if they all should vanish tomorrow, that will still be true. So "Forever" all by itself was a much more appropriate title, I think.

This short piece is not performed with the instruments that I "heard" in my head when I was composing it. In this, the cello starts, followed by the trumpet. The flute joins in, and for me, I hear an oboe, but substituted a saxophone as I didn't have an oboe available. For the technicals, I scored it all by hand, as in pencil with notes and dots on the page, and then brought it to life with my Kurzweil K2600xs, using the sequencer. I think it turned out pretty good, but obviously, there's a lot of work left to do, whenever I get the inspiration.

This first part turned out a bit more chamber music'ish than I expected, but I think it's still close to what I was hearing in my head.

I envision the final composition to be about 40-45 minutes, in five parts, with the "theme" always remaining the same and holding the various parts together. My vision for it would be to have it performed with a small ensemble of Cello, Trumpet, Flute, and Oboe, along with Piano and Organ.

If anyone should find this tiny piece to be an inspiration, or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to send me a note or comment. Also, I do have a scan of the original score if anyone's interested. Thanx for listening and any comments/critiques are always welcome.

Disclaimer: I hate to have to put this on here, but this composition, meager as it might be, is copyright me. Please do not distribute, copy, alter, etc, without my permission.