My contribution to the 2006 Delian Suite is called "From the Tomb of Marcus Statius Chilo," a setting of an ancient Roman funerary inscription for tenor and piano.

When I first learned of the theme for this year's suite, I immediately thought of Roman tomb inscriptions in which the dead directly address the living. Although I don't believe in spirits in the literal sense, the words and objects left behind by the dead can certainly speak to us in a very immediate way. These are the real "ghosts" which confront us across time.

Here is the original Latin, followed by my translation:

The setting is definitely tonal, but harmonically very free compared to anything else I've written. The first eight bars are something of an invocation. Most likely, the word "hic" in the inscription merely means that the dead man's body is "here," but for my purposes I take it to mean that he is present with us in spirit. There is a prominent dissonance at the word "libertus," emphasizing the irony of a dead man being referred to as a "freedman."

In the music that follows, Marcus Statius Chilo speaks directly to us. There is a climax at the words "to this place you must come," which leads into a reiteration of the opening chords, a musical representation of return. In the closing measures the dissonant chord that accompanied the word "libertus" is replaced by a calmer, root position d-minor chord, over which the tenor softly repeats the words "you must come."