American composer J. Corey Knoll was born in Clarksburg, WV in 1979. He has been awarded degrees in Music Composition and Theory from Marshall University and Bowling Green State University. Knoll also studied in Florence, Italy, where he received several premiers. He has also been premiered across the USA and in Paris, France. Knoll is currently working toward a PhD in Music Composition at Louisiana State University. Currently his musical interests lie in the study of pitch hierarchies as well as Appalachian folk music.

Selva Oscura
The Inferno of Dante Alighieri
Translated by Corey Knoll
Halfway down the path of my life
I found myself alone in a dark forest
Which was astray of that straight road.
Ah, how difficult a thing it was to tell,
Such a brutal forest both rugged and difficult
Which upon pondering renews my fear,
So bitter that death no longer seems so;
Yet to discuss the good of which I found there,
So the misery which I experienced there I must tell.
I do not know if I can recall when I had entered there,
So full of sleep I was at that point
Which I abandoned the truthful road.