Seven Ghosts came about as a commission from the Plymouth Music Series for its "Witness" series. I wanted to create a suite of Heroes - seven people whose lives contributed to changing the heart of our American culture. In this piece I wanted to let each hero speak in her/his own words.

Phillis Wheatley's poem to George Washington entreats him to lead his rebel army to its destined glory. It is believed that Washington carried the poem in his breast-pocket throughout the Revolutionary War.

Jenny Lind, during her 1950's, P.T, Barnum sponsored tour of the United States, developed a deep interest in abolition and an abiding respect for Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." I set the words of one of her beautiful letters to Stowe.

Clyde Thombaugh, a young man with a passion for astronomy and an ability for tedious work, discovered the politically besieged planet Pluto, at the age of 23, becoming the only American ever to have discovered a planet.

Charles Lindergh's passion for flight inspired my setting of his childhood revery, "I used to imagine myself with wings."

Louis Armstrong is one of my heroes. For me, Armstrong is as important to our culture as Mozart was to his. My "United Hots Clubs" is a choral riff on the "Tiger Rag", made famous by Armstrong and his band on their world Hot Clubs tour, 1935.