The texts for this piece are African, and Kotje is an African god. The poets are: Leopold Senghor, Birago Diop, David Diop, Dennis Brutus, Christopher Okigbo, Chinua Achebe, Bernard Dadié and Malick Fall. This was my Master's thesis composition, and to the shame of the University of Alberta Music Department, it has never been performed.

    It was inspired both by the poetry and by an Ivory Coast folksong that I had on a vinyl recording. The song appears in some guise or other in each of the 10 sections of the work, which are played without a break. The little tune appears once again in my Suite of Orchestral Dances, second movement. Another strong influence was that of Malcolm Forsyth, my thesis advisor, a composer whose music I admired and for whom I had copied parts.

    It requires about 18 minutes to perform and exhibits my own style of free-ranging and dissonant tonality. The orchestral forces are as follows:
    2,2,2,2; 2,2,3; timp, 4 perc.; piano; SATB; strings

    The texts move from some of the most evocative landscape painting I have ever read, to the emergence of free and proud mankind, to sadness at the destruction of a culture.

If you wish to view the score, or better yet, perform the work, please send me an email (below).