Performed live on April 12th, 2024 as a part of Christopher Keach's second doctoral recital.

Rainy Night Soliloquy by Keith Gates

Christopher Keach, trumpet

Julie Miller, piano

Program Notes:

"Keith Gates lived in Lake Charles where he taught at McNeese State University for many years. He composed in many genres including symphonies, concerti, and operas, including his commissions and grants to write the operas Tom Sawyer, The Hollow, Evangeline, and The Christmas Coin.

Rainy Night Soliloquy was commissioned by Aaron Farris, a trumpet major at McNeese State University, in 1994, in honor of his girlfriend. The work, for trumpet and piano, was later rescored for trumpet and chamber orchestra for use in the opera Evangeline. The opera Evangeline was based on the epic poem of Longfellow.

From Longfellow’s Evangeline:

'As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning

Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us,

Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets,

So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far below her,

Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the pathway

Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the distance.'

This is the Canadian premiere of Rainy Night Soliloquy."