This is an extract of the “Ecclesiastes” book — placed after psalms and proverbs — probably written three centuries before Christ. The author placed his thoughts under the patronage of Solomon, the most renowned of Israel’s sages. There is a single theme with several variations; all is deceiving, including life. Life is made of incoherent and insignificant acts and it ends up with death, for everybody. Human vanity is enunciated at the beginning and at the end of the book. The story is interspersed with beautiful verses the composer used fine. It won the 3rd prize in Tours’ Florilège Vocal’s composition competition. Donna Kelly Eastman teaches composition and orchestration, and is also a clinician at the Illinois Wesleyan University and at the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory, Russia. She studied voicing, composing and playing the piano at University of Colorado (1967) and University of Maryland (1973), then she conducted Bangkok Madrigal Singers (from 1982 to 1984) supervised by Gerald Lepinski and Dana Wells, but also a Stuttgart’s choir, Germany (from 1974 to 1976) and other Japanese and American groups. Donna K. Eastman composed many works for choirs and instruments, but also motets and even a 3-scene chamber opera which won compositions’ prizes in the USA, France and South Africa.
