One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

-Wallace Stevens

The Snow Man was performed at Source Song Festival as part of the 2021 MNSong Composer Showcase. It was performed by Alberto de la Paz, tenor, and Kathryn Ananda-Owens, pianist, via an online broadcast on August 6, 2021.

Brian Stark is a composer and saxophonist earning his DMA at the University of Illinois. He was admitted as the inaugural recipient of the Helgesen Fellowship for Excellence in Jazz Studies and teaches woodwind lessons for the Unit One division. He has studied composition with Paris Rutherford, Steve Wiest, Alan Baylock, Chip McNeill, and Dr. Edwin Childs. His compositions have been recognized by organizations including the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC) Symposium and the Ithaca College Jazz Ensemble Composition Contest. Brian has had compositions and arrangements commissioned by ensembles around the world and released on recordings by the Shout Section Big Band and the UNT One and Two O'Clock Lab Bands.

In addition to jazz, Brian has been active as a singer-songwriter, releasing art-rock albums containing text settings of Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound and Edna St. Vincent Millay along with his original lyrics. In 2014 Brian premiered an original cantata for strings commissioned by Covenant Presbyterian Church in Chicago for their Maundy Thursday service. He eagerly pursues opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and has contributed to multiple musical theater productions and worked with professional flamenco musicians in a series of grant-funded flamenco-jazz projects.

Brian is also an in-demand performer, having performed in professional ensembles led by jazz luminaries including Brad Leali, Adonis Rose, Larry Gray, Dr. Davey Moony, Bob Ojeda, and Chip McNeill. In his spare time Brian enjoys performing in the Champaign-Urbana area with his wife in their ensemble, the Fiddle-Sax Fusion Band.

Further information is available at www.brianstarkmusic.com