Samuel Jones, the latest composer to be featured in Beaverton Symphony’s continuing series of Northwest Composing Artists, was Composer in Residence of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra for fourteen years.  He stepped down two years ago, but still lives there and still composes, having recently completed a violin concerto for Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

Jones was originally from the Deep South.  Born (1935) and educated in Mississippi, he headed north after college to earn his Ph.D. in composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.  He began his career as a conductor, advancing through the ranks of the smaller American orchestras to become Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic.  Then a call from Texas took him south again, where, at Rice University, he founded the Shepherd School of Music and served as its dean for six years before stepping down to serve as professor of composition and conducting there for almost two decades more.

Listen, Now, My Children dates from his Texas days, when he was commissioned to write a piece for the commemoration of the founding of the city of Midland.  It premiered there on November 19, 1985.

Based on folk songs sung by Texas frontier children, it leads off, after a brief introduction, with the tune of The Fox Is on the Town, then joins it in counterpoint with Little Joe, the Wrangler and Shoot the Buffalo. (This last song was used as an ice-breaker at parties, to get everyone up and participating.) Two versions of There Was a Little Fight in Mexico follow at a slower tempo. (A verse about kissing and hugging was very popular at parties, since it furnished an excuse for what they all wanted to be doing.) Next comes Texas Boys (“Don't you go marryin’ those Texas boys!”). Then the kissing and marrying songs are played simultaneously.

A poignant lullaby The Babes in the Woods, follows. (It concern two little children left to starve in the forest.) But abruptly the violins morph into a fiddling band and, with brasses piled on top, bring the piece to a climax with the fast tempo and lively rhythms of Weevily Wheat, Toll-a-Winker, and The Snail Song.  Finally, When the Work’s All Done this Fall reminds us that this has all been a “once-upon-a-time” remembrance of days long gone. But the piece ends with a return to the present in a final brief burst of exuberance that echo the opening bars.