Friends from my Childhood

Jennifer Piazza-Pick, soprano
Natalie Groom, clarinet
Cherise Leiter, piano
00:00 I. Something Splendid
01:14 II. Mistress Mary
03:08 III. Pray
05:30 IV. A Diploma

"Friends from my Childhood" is a trio commissioned by the Parlando School of Musical Arts. It is a set of four short songs with texts drawn from books that were favorites of the composer when a young person. “Something Splendid” quotes the irrepressible Jo March from Louisa May Alcott’s "Little Women." “Mistress Mary” comes from "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. “Pray” pulls its text from "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery, and Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz provides the text for “A Diploma” which states the incontrovertible fact that one doesn’t need a brain to prove intelligence, but only a diploma!