song icon The Death of the Moth was composed in Oberlin, Ohio (2003, revised in Oberlin, 2006). “Men rush to their doom like moths flying to their death in the candle-flame”—Bhagavad Gita. The moth is drawn towards light, and like Icarus, will inevitably burn its wings and fall. The Death of the Moth is a meditation on mankind’s “falling from grace” and his out-of-balance relationship with nature. The title is from a short story by Virginia Woolf.

© fwmp 2006