Alden Phelps is an artist, songwriter, and musician with over 20 years years of experience performing for audiences of all kinds across the region. Alden’s zany songs, zippy guitar-ifications, and sing-along choruses delight folks of all ages, and his arts-integrated interactive workshops inspire a love of language and the joy of playing with words.
Word Play promotional video
Alden Phelps' longest-running and most beloved assembly program "Word Play" has delighted audiences across the DelMarVa area. His silly songs, word games, and audience participation engages students from grades K-5, and can also be tailored for family events.
Medium: live concert
Year: 2021
Details: promotional video is a little over 2 min long
From the last pages of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, A Wish.
This mini crankie, 6" wide, I made for the Mini Crankie Festival in February 2021, hosted by The Western Mass Puppet Guild. The song, I took from the last pages of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. If you don't manage to make it to the light and indeed fall back to earth to be born again, may you be born remembering, so you don't repeat your mistakes and you more fully understand yourself and your actions.
Medium: crankie, a scrolling panorama of images
Year: 2021
Details: 6" wide, 60"long
Brahms // Trio in A Minor, Op. 114
Details: 8'
Beethoven // Gassenhauer Trio
Medium: Classical Music
Year: 2019
The Baltimore-based Ann Street Trio is devoted to performing chamber music from the classical era to the 21st century. Comprised of several of Baltimore’s finest musicians, the Ann Street Trio believes in engaging their audience through creative programming and conversation, and strives to give them an up-close look at the creativity and excitement of chamber music. The Ann Street Trio reaches audiences through chamber music series in the region, university engagements, and private salon concerts.
See more information about When All Falls Silent (2020)
A work for clarinet choir that responds to feelings of isolation and loneliness exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Medium: Instrumental Music
Year: 2020
Details: 4'
See more information about Weavers: Mother // Spider (2020)
This is a short art song composed in 2020, using two Haiku written by former Baltimore City Resident, Alma Wickenden. The first describes a mother sewing a garment with love; the second admires a spider weaving her web.
Medium: Art Song
Year: 2020
Details: 3'
See more information about Verses for Children (2020)
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2nd-place winner, NATS Art Song Composition Competition 2021
Music by Erik Franklin (b. 1989)
based on selected poems from
Verses for Children by Amy Lowell (1874–1925)
I. The Crescent Moon
II. Wind
III. Sea Shell
IV. Climbing
V. The Trout
From nursery rhymes to lullabies, children’s songs are a universal part of our lives. The melodies and lyrics continue to play in our minds well into adulthood, serving to transport our grown selves directly to the realm of youthful imagination. In Verses for Children, we hear a child’s voice narrate with playfulness and wonderment as they observe the world around them. This interaction with nature is a crucial thread woven through each of the songs—each poem conveying the deep sense of connection we feel as children to the rest of the world, imbuing celestial and terrestrial objects alike with an essence of humanity by means of the imagination.
In the songs, I try to capture the innocence of the child-speaker by composing melodies reminiscent of the children’s songs we know and love. A four-note pentatonic motive is present throughout each of the songs, representing the powerful imagination of the child.
Music by Erik Franklin (b. 1989)
based on selected poems from
Verses for Children by Amy Lowell (1874–1925)
I. The Crescent Moon
II. Wind
III. Sea Shell
IV. Climbing
V. The Trout
From nursery rhymes to lullabies, children’s songs are a universal part of our lives. The melodies and lyrics continue to play in our minds well into adulthood, serving to transport our grown selves directly to the realm of youthful imagination. In Verses for Children, we hear a child’s voice narrate with playfulness and wonderment as they observe the world around them. This interaction with nature is a crucial thread woven through each of the songs—each poem conveying the deep sense of connection we feel as children to the rest of the world, imbuing celestial and terrestrial objects alike with an essence of humanity by means of the imagination.
In the songs, I try to capture the innocence of the child-speaker by composing melodies reminiscent of the children’s songs we know and love. A four-note pentatonic motive is present throughout each of the songs, representing the powerful imagination of the child.
Medium: Art Song
Year: 2020
Details: 14'