Dishes

For SATB Choir

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Program Notes

I may be wrong, but in my experience, there are very few people who genuinely enjoy doing the dishes. I am certainly not one of them.

In the fall of 2010, I shared a house with three other people. One day, I came home to discover a kitchen sink completely overflowing with dishes—none of which were mine—a perfectly empty dishwasher sitting nearby, and an odor best described as cottage cheese approximately three months beyond its expiration date.

It was clear that someone had to surrender.

So, rather than continue staring at the mess and hoping it might somehow resolve itself, I started cleaning. Somewhere between scraping plates and loading the dishwasher, however, my internal complaining began turning into something more useful: words.

Then came the thought: How funny would it be to write a choral piece about doing the dishes?

The more I considered it, the more appealing the idea became. The situation was absurdly ordinary, instantly relatable, and offered plenty of opportunities for humor. At the same time, I wanted the music itself to present a genuine challenge. The goal was never simply to write a joke; I wanted to create something that would be entertaining to perform and hear while still demanding precision, musicianship, and commitment from the ensemble.

And thus, Dishes was born.

Once the text was complete, the music was designed to amplify its comic character. Chromatic writing, unexpected harmonic shifts, sudden changes of key, and playful interactions between the voices reflect the growing frustration and absurdity of the situation. The humor works best when the ensemble fully commits to it while maintaining the musical precision the score demands.

At its heart, Dishes takes one of life’s most mundane and universally dreaded chores and treats it with far more musical seriousness than it probably deserves.

Then again, if someone had just loaded the dishwasher in the first place, none of this would have happened.

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