Listen Now, My Children
Instrumentation: *3,*3,*3,*3/4,3,3,1/T,3P,Hp/Stgs
Duration: 11 mins.

Based on Texas children’s folk songs sung a century ago, this lively fantasy was commissioned by the Midland-Odessa Symphony for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the city of Midland. It was conceived as a companion piece to one of Jones’ most-performed works, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which was also commissioned for a major anniversary (the bicentennial celebration of Shenandoah County, Virginia). Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is prevailingly meditative, with a fast central section. Listen Now, My Children, on the other hand, is more ebullient and outgoing. Its slow central lullaby is surrounded by faster outer sections, including near the end a genuine fiddlers’ jamboree.