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Blades of Grass was inspired by the poem Grass by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967):

"Pile the bodies high at Austerliz and Waterloo, Shovel them under and let me work-I am the grass; I cover all.

The Chamber Symphony dates from his New York period before he studied with the legendary Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) at the American Conservatory outside of Paris. Like other works from his early

Celebrating the tiny subatomic particles that are, in essence, the building blocks of matter, this whimsical and introspective piece is divided into three sections: the main "dance" theme; a middle

Polaris, otherwise known as the North Star, is one of the brightest stars in our sky. This piece is a dramatic ride through the imagination, from wondrous and intimate to heavy and percussive. Polaris

Barlow's Prelude, Air and Variation, written in 1948, is the first twentieth-century work scored for the combination of bassoon, string quartet, and piano. There are earlier compositions from the