Lizard Pushups (trombone + piano, includes other options)

It comes to me sometimes
When the air is heavy
and the bugs are loud,
When the hawks circle
and the crows are in cracked conversation,
When the frog chorus swells
and the lizards do their pushups,
When a child rides by on a bicycle,
and two dogs give each other a friendly growl:

It's not just that everything is vibrating and alive,
it's that everything is vibrating and alive together.

—Rabbi Michael Joseph

If you listen you can hear the lizards doing pushups in the music itself! Lizards are one of my favorite things about Florida, and growing up in South Florida I wanted to celebrate my tropical upbringing. This piece is dedicated to my cat Josephine, whose passing precipitated a feverish bout of composing. In Judaism our main prayer for mourning our dead is mostly just a bunch of exultant praise; maybe that's why this piece sounds so happy despite the circumstances of its creation.

—Sonya Leonore Stahl, composer

Commissioned by Dr. Dunwoody Mirvil and Dr. Joseph P. Gray. Duration: 4 minutes