Purchase includes full 74 page annotated score of the 12 pieces of Ecclesiastes. Please email us here for the original drones and soundtracks if interested.

A recording of Ecclesiastes by the Time Remaining Band can be found here, as well as the rest of the text that the following is an excerpt from:

“… I call this record a modern oratorio. Oratorios were operas minus staging, costumes or props. Just the theater of the music and the words. Sung. Usually about a sacred topic. Often drawn from the Bible.It’s modern because it involves the use of technology in primary music-making—drones and soundtrack collages of “found” sound—sounds made by the ensemble or me, altered, fractured, recombined—organic to the whole but disembodied in time.ecclesiastes: a modern oratorio is drawn from the Old Testament’s Book of Ecclesiastes. Primarily Chapters 1 and 3. You may recognize the well-known poem from Chapter 3, from The Byrds’ 1965 hit song Turn! Turn! Turn! penned by Pete Seeger in the 1950s:

"To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die; a tie to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away.
A time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

—from the Book of Ecclesiastes (Eccles.) 3:1-8, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised by His Majesty’s special command. Appointed to by read in churches, Authorized King James Version (1611) or [KJV]

My path to setting these words to music has been indirect. Because ecclesiastes: a modern oratorio began life as music for choreographer Gina Gibney’s 2002 Time Remaining for six women dancers, the music has always focused on time: its mystery, its power, its incomprehensibility, its inevitability. Gina had been cautious about the inclusion of text when we started, even though we were working with singers, because she didn’t want to diminish the message of the dance itself. This biblical passage about time, we felt, would add a neutral aesthetic commentary because it was so familiar.

To finish out the seven time couplets, I found a portion of a lesser-known verse deeper in the chapter, and modernized the verb endings:

"That which has been is now, and that which is to be has already been."
—Eccles. 3:15, my translation or [KB]

Which seemed as magnificent and quintessential as I could ever hope for….”

A recording of Ecclesiastes: A Modern Oratorio can be found on Bandcamp.