The Singing Oboe is a compilation of 'art songs' with piano. While a few pieces present technical and rhythmic challenges, they all require a high degree of skill to express their melodies with tasteful, nuanced style. Whether playing longer arched phrases or shorter gestured ones, the oboe must 'sing'.

The fifteen short pieces share several characteristics: folk melody simplicity, clearly delineated forms, and contrapuntal writing. Some songs are clearly tonal, some are chromatic, others are atonal. Modality is prominent in the set. There is, however, no central idea that links them; they are completely unrelated, independent. One can perform all or several songs in any order.

Since the songs encompass numerous styles and historical and regional traditions, some brief descriptions follow:

4	Exotic tonalities and chords surround simple, plaintive melody.

5	B major middle section's bass line suggests Baroque ancestry; its asymmetric phrases overlapping between oboe and piano prove otherwise.

8	Ragtime and melancholia juxtaposed.

9	Highly rhythmic, reminiscent of Brazilian dance.

11	ABCA form opening with D minor adagietto, short faster contrapuntal section, three-voice fugue exposition, and restatement of adagietto, a nod to the Baroque.

14	Opens and closes in G pentatonic to create an oriental atmosphere.