As wild things the secret glade (2025)
oboe quartet (oboe, violin, viola, cello)
c. 8 minutes
Commissioned by Sammi Jo Stone
Premiered by Sammi Stone (oboe), Alice Trindle (violin), Sam Ross (viola), Polly Gibson (cello)
Press Room Coffee & Books, La Grande, OR, 21 February 2026 (forthcoming)
I’ve always been ambivalent about sonnets. Ada Hastings Hedges (1884-1980) made me love them. Her language is straightforward and word choice is precise, and in reading her poetry, I continually find myself surprised by an unexpected rhyme or alliteration. Much of Hedges’ work revolves around the landscape of southeastern Oregon’s high desert, where she lived for over a decade in the 1910s and 1920s. Her writing shows an almost mystical respect for the desert and the natural world, which, in her poems, remains indifferent to the actions of the people around it.
At the time of composing As wild things the secret glade (2025), I was reading Hedges’ Desert Poems (1930), the one collection of poems published during Hedges’ lifetime. Although my oboe quartet is not based on one poem in particular, the images of vast openness, juniper trees and sagebrush, and the occasional birdsong were on my mind while composing this piece. These images are especially present in the opening chords and the triple meter viola and cello pattern that follows shortly after. The title is a line from the ending of Hedges’ poem “Desert Born,” where she speaks directly to the inhabits of the desert, who love the desert “as wild things the secret glade.” While many of Hedges’ desert poems evoke the solitude of the desert, this poem honors those who have found a home in the Oregon’s high desert, and felt like an apt title for this piece.
c. 8 minutes
Commissioned by Sammi Jo Stone
Premiered by Sammi Stone (oboe), Alice Trindle (violin), Sam Ross (viola), Polly Gibson (cello)
Press Room Coffee & Books, La Grande, OR, 21 February 2026 (forthcoming)
I’ve always been ambivalent about sonnets. Ada Hastings Hedges (1884-1980) made me love them. Her language is straightforward and word choice is precise, and in reading her poetry, I continually find myself surprised by an unexpected rhyme or alliteration. Much of Hedges’ work revolves around the landscape of southeastern Oregon’s high desert, where she lived for over a decade in the 1910s and 1920s. Her writing shows an almost mystical respect for the desert and the natural world, which, in her poems, remains indifferent to the actions of the people around it.
At the time of composing As wild things the secret glade (2025), I was reading Hedges’ Desert Poems (1930), the one collection of poems published during Hedges’ lifetime. Although my oboe quartet is not based on one poem in particular, the images of vast openness, juniper trees and sagebrush, and the occasional birdsong were on my mind while composing this piece. These images are especially present in the opening chords and the triple meter viola and cello pattern that follows shortly after. The title is a line from the ending of Hedges’ poem “Desert Born,” where she speaks directly to the inhabits of the desert, who love the desert “as wild things the secret glade.” While many of Hedges’ desert poems evoke the solitude of the desert, this poem honors those who have found a home in the Oregon’s high desert, and felt like an apt title for this piece.