Program Notes: Synergy, Works for Chorus and Solo Artists
Stephen Chatman: There is Sweet Music Here
Eric Whitacre: Five Hebrew Love Songs
Paul Basler: Songs of Faith
Aaron Copland: Old American Songs
Joseph M. Martin: The Awakening
Stephen Chatman (1950- ) was born in Faribault, Minnesota and has taught composition and orchestration at the University of British Columbia since 1976.
"There is Sweet Music Here was commissioned by the Canada Council and written for and premiered by the Vancouver Canata Singers in 1984. This set of four songs to verses by three English poets shows the marked influence of the English choral tradition. Its two joyous settings of poems from Blake's Songs of Innocence are coupled with gentler, more inward songs to poems of Tennyson and Shelley." -- from the choral score.
With Ron Kaye solo oboe.
Four English poems set to music:
1. There is Sweet Music Here .................. Alfred Tennyson
2. Song of the Laughing Green Woods.......William Blake (Songs of Innocence)
3. Music, When Soft Voices Die................Percy Bysshe Shelley
4. Piping Down the Valleys Wild................William Blake (Songs of Innocence)
Eric Whitacre (1970- ) is an accomplished composer, conductor and lecturer, and one of the bright stars in contemporary concert music. Regularly commissioned and published, Whitacre has received composition awards from ASCAP, the Barlow International Composition Competition, the American Choral Directors Association, and the American Composers Forum.
Five Hebrew Love Songs arranged for SATB chorus, solo violin (Michael Loo) and piano (Judith Yauckoes) was commissioned by the University of Miami School of Music on its 75th Anniversary.
I. Temuná (A picture)
A picture is engraved in my heart;
Moving between light and darkness:
A sort of silence envelopes your body,
And your hair falls upon you face just so.
II. Kalá kallá (Light bride)
Light bride
She is all mine,
And lightly
She will kiss me!
III. Lárov (Mostly)
"Mostly," said the roof to the sky,
"the distance between you and I is endlessness;
But a while ago two came up here,
and only one centimeter was left between us."
IV. Éyze shéleg! (What snow!)
What snow!
Like little dreams
Falling from the sky.
V. Rakút (Tenderness)
He was full of tenderness;
She was very hard.
And as much as she tried to stay thus,
Simply, and with no good reason,
He took her into himself,
And set her down
in the smallest, softest place.
~ Hila Plitmann
Paul Basler (1963- ) born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is currently the Associate Professor of Music at Kenyatta University (Nairobi, Kenya) and an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Florida.
"Songs of Faith is a large,multi-movement work that explores and celebrates the American Spirit. Written in the Fall of 1998, as a "sequel" to Basler's acclaimed Missa Kenya, each of the five movements was written for a different conductor and choral ensemble. This work is in arch form, with a hymn tune setting surrounded by two Psalms and two Latin texts: Psalm 150, Ubi Caritas, Be Thou My Vision, Alleluia, and finally Psalm 23. Cross references between the movements abound whether harmonic, melodic or gestural." - from the choral score.
Accompanied by Kimberly Hamill on French Horn.
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) born in Brooklyn, New York, had a great impact on American music. The magnitude of his repertoire, the diversity and effectiveness of his compositions, and his diverse involvement in all phases of the American musical scene- especially school, theatre, ballet and motion pictures- placed him at the forefront of the American musical scene. He was the first in a long line of American musicians to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, who stressed the development of a personal style of composition. In his early works he experimented with symphonic jazz and then the Neoclassical style. He then became more concerned with music that was accessible to the public, and he drew greatly on themes of regional America. His three ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, have become very familiar as concert hall pieces. He also wrote several film scores and patriotic works, such as Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man before experimenting briefly with the atonal twelve-tone technique. The latter part of his career was spent conducting his music all over the world.
Old American Songs, Set Two was arranged for chorus by Irving Fine, R.W. White, and Glenn Koponen at the request of Copland. They are all based on original American folk tunes.
All the Pretty Little Horses
Zion's Walls
The Golden Willow Tree- David Bonneau- Baritone
At the River
Ching-a-ring Chaw
Joseph Martin is recognized throughout the United States for his many choral compositions, both sacred and secular. Over 750 compositions are currently in print and the list continues to grow. The Awakening was commissioned by the Texas Choral Directors Association in commemoration of their 40th anniversary celebration