Two Native American Songs

1. Ancient Mother

2. The Earth Is Our Mother

arr. Barbara Sletto

Ancient Mother I hear you calling,

Ancient Mother, I hear your song.

Ancient Mother, I hear your laughter,

Ancient Mother, I taste your tears.

The Earth is our Mother,

We must take care of Her.

Hey yanna, ho yanna,

Hey yan yan.

Her sacred ground we walk upon,

With every step we take.

In “Ancient Mother,” the rain stick and whispering of the text over the recorder is added to represent voices from the past. The simple vocal accompaniment for the altos and second sopranos represents the continuum of time.

The text of “The Earth Is Our Mother” seems to respond to the text of “Ancient Mother” as it emphasizes the importance of treating the earth with respect. The drum and shakers represent the heartbeat of the nation. This song is typically sung by the Midwest Cherokee Alliance as their earth honoring song. They sing to bless the ground for special occasions such as weddings and festivals.

– Henry Leck

Arranger Barbara Sletto is currently the director of the Naples Philharmonic Youth Chorus in Florida, and a noted music educator who specializes in working with treble voices. She has published over a dozen pieces for treble choirs, including Two Native American Songs.

Spring Is Singing in the Garden

W.H. Anderson, words anonymous

Spring is singing in the garden

To the laughing daffodils,

With a voice like fluting thrushes

Or a thousand trickling rills.

Ev’ry flow’r in saffron yellow,

Wearing each her golden train,

Whispers softly to her fellow

“Laugh! For Spring is here again.”

Spring is nodding to the lilac

Shadows on the purple grass,

Rustling in the purple blossoms

For with Spring the blooms must pass.

And the soft wind murmurs round them,

Shaking out the silver rain,

“By the blue of skies above you,

Laugh! For Spring is here again.”

W.H. Anderson (1882-1955) was an English composer, conductor, and singer who wrote a large amount of vocal and choral music during the early 20th century, ranging from folksong arrangements to hymns and carols. Anderson was also an accomplished singer, and worked in churches and opera houses across London until a particularly bad recurring case of bronchitis put a stop to his singing career. In search of a drier climate for his health, he moved to Winnipeg, Canada and continued to compose, teach voice lessons, and conduct choirs until his death in 1955. His work as a voice teacher and church musician made him a sensitive composer when it came to producing works for young and amateur singers, and his past as a singer resulted in pieces with great attention paid to the setting of text.

“Spring is Singing in the Garden” is from a song collection entitled Four Seasonal Songs, and our Prep singers worked very hard on this piece this semester. We talked about how the text personifies different aspects of spring– “laughing daffodils,” or flowers “wearing each her golden train”– and how we could use our voices to convey different emotions and feelings from the lyrics with our text stress and dynamics. 

A Great Big Sea

Newfoundland Folk Song, arr. Lori-Anne Dolloff

A great big sea hove in Long Beach

Right fol-or-al Ta-dee-diddle I-do.

A great big sea hove in Long Beach

And Granny Snooks she lost her speech

To me right fol-diddy fol-dee.

A great big sea hove in the Harbour

Right fol-or-al Ta-dee-diddle I-do.

A great big sea hove in the Harbour

And hove right up to Keough’s Parlour

To me right fol-diddy fol-dee.

Oh mother dear I wants a sack,

Right fol-or-al Ta-dee-diddle I-do.

Oh mother dear I wants a sack

With beads and buttons all down the back

To me right fol-diddy fol-dee.

Me boot is broke, me frock is tore,

Right fol-or-al Ta-dee-diddle I-do.

Me boot is broke, me frock is tore,

But Georgie Snooks I do adore

To me right fol-diddy fol-dee.

Oh fish is low and flour is high,

Right fol-or-al Ta-dee-diddle I-do.

Oh fish is low and flour is high, 

So Georgie Snooks he can’t have I,

To me right fol-diddy fol-dee.

Dee dee diddy fol-dee,

Diddle diddle de,

Diddle diddle diddle dee.

But he will have me in the fall,

Right fol-or-al Ta-dee-diddle I-do.

If he don’t I’ll hoist my sail

And say goodbye to old Cannaille.

To me right fol-diddy diddy,

Right fol-diddy diddy

Ta-dee-diddle diddy fol-dee.

“A Great Big Sea” is a rollicking Newfoundland folk song in sea shanty style arranged by music educator Lori-Anne Dolloff, currently a professor of music education at the University of Toronto. The text tells the story of the various economic effects of an especially high sea which floods a local village. The price of fish drops, the price of flour skyrockets, and the narrator’s boots break and their frock tears! And yet the narrator’s spirits never flag as the arrangement proceeds through several keys–rising just as the water does–and when the song concludes it’s with a sense of determination to set off for a better life if their material conditions don’t improve. The combination of folksy rhythms and nonsensical text makes this piece as fun to sing as it is to listen to!

Gardener of the World

Philip E. Silvey, poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson

Great is the sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven with repose;

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlour cool,

Yet he will find a chink or two

To slip his golden fingers through.

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground,

And sheds a warm and glittering look

Among the ivy’s inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true.

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World he goes.

The text of “Gardener of the World,” written by Robert Louis Stevenson as part of the collection A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods, is beautifully descriptive and full of expressive imagery. The poem describes the sun’s perseverance in the face of rain, closed blinds, and hidden nooks and crannies, and its equal purpose in “pleasing the child” and “painting the rose,” bringing both joy and growth to the world through its shining. The text’s emphasis on the golden brightness of the sun’s presence is matched by a lush accompaniment and waltz-like rhythmic structure that evoke feelings of warmth in the listener.

Composer Philip Silvey is well known for his choral works and is currently working as a professor of music education at the Eastman School of Music, within the University of Rochester. See program note for “Let Beauty Awake” for additional biographical information on poet Robert Louis Stevenson.

Soy Un Coya Chiquitito

South American Folk Song, arr. R. Eben Trobaugh

I am a little coya

I live alone on my small ranch.

I wear my poncho and my hat

I wear my leather sandals.

With my donkey and my dog,

I walk up the hills.

When I play my flute,

All of my sorrows go away.

“Soy un Coya Chiquitito” is an arrangement of a traditional folk tune sung by children and families throughout Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. The windy sound effects at the beginning of the piece transports the listener to the foothills of the Andes mountains where the low whistle of the wind creates a sense of solitude and a place to reflect. The narrator of this piece calls himself as a coya, referring to the indigenous peoples of Western Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina from the Jujuy or Salta Provinces, and the upper notes of the piano play the role of the quena (an indigenous flute) that the little boy carries with him. As he plays this instrument, his sorrows fly away, turning the once somber melody into one that reflects lighthearted joy. Eventually the boy grows tired from his playing, singing, and dancing, finishing his song in a once again reflective tone before he begins his trek down the hill back to his ranch.

Arranger R. Eben Trobaugh is a composer, conductor, and music educator who currently teaches 5th and 6th grade music in South Carolina.

Let Beauty Awake

R. Vaughan Williams, poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson

Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,

Beauty awake from rest!

Let Beauty awake

For Beauty’s sake

In the hour when the birds awake in the brake

And the stars are bright in the west!

Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,

Awake in the crimson eve!

In the day’s dusk end

When the shades ascend,

Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend,

To render again and receive!

“Let Beauty Awake” is the second of nine pieces in the song cycle Songs of Travel by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Songs of Travel was written between 1901-1904, and the texts were selected from a cycle of poems by the same name written by famed Scottish poet Robert Louis Stevenson. “Let Beauty Awake,” an homage to nature and youth, is the ninth of 46 poems that comprised the Songs of Travel poetry cycle, but when the texts were set to music by Vaughan Williams he changed the order to create a cohesive story of a specific traveler. 

Written originally for solo baritone, the choral piece is sung in unison in a higher key that is transcribed for soprano or tenor. This presents artistic challenges of range, advanced phrasing, and beautiful tone. Our young singers have embraced this challenge with enthusiasm and diligence. “Let Beauty Awake” is really another way to acknowledge the wonder of this earth, and the text embodies the theme of “what a wonderful world.”

Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Gloucestershire, England in 1872 to a rather wealthy and educated family, and died in 1958. He is particularly well known for his vocal and choral works, and his fascination with utilizing British folk music and modal scales in his research and compositions put him at the forefront of England’s musical nationalism movement in the late 19th century.

Poet Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. His ill health kept him at home most of the time, where he was tutored and learned to read voraciously. Because of frequent bouts of bronchial illness, he was drawn to dry climates, and he spent much of his adult life traveling to escape the cold and rainy weather of Scotland. He lives in the United States, France, and in his last days, Samoa. Many of the Songs of Travel were written en route to and in Samoa.

Turn the World Around

Harry Belafonte and Robert Freedman, arr. Mark Hayes

We come from the fire, 

Living in the fire.

Go back to the fire, 

Turn the world around.

We come from the water, 

Living in the water.

Go back to the water, 

Turn the world around.

We come from the mountain, 

Living in the mountain.

Go back to the mountain, 

Turn the world around.

Whoa, ho! So is life.

Ah, ha! So is life.

Do you know who I am?

Do I know who you are?

See we one another clearly?

Do we know who we are?

Whoa, ho! So is life, a ba tee wah ha!

So is life.

Water make the river,

River wash the mountain.

Fire make the sunlight,

Turn the world around.

Heart is of the river,

Body is the mountain.

Spirit is the sunlight;

Turn the world around.

We are of the spirit,

Truly of the spirit,

Only can the spirit

Turn the world around.

Harry Belafonte (1927-2023) was a songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. A dear friend of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, he helped organize the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, traveled across the country with the Freedom Riders, raised funds for Africa in the “We Are the World” campaign, spoke against Apartheid, and never relented from his quest for social justice. Known as the King of Calypso, he was raised mostly in Jamaica with his mother’s family, and his love for Calypso music was developed as a young child.

Turn the World Around is from Belafonte’s 1977 album of the same title. During a trip to Guinea, he was taught pieces of the song by a griot (a West African oral historian or storyteller) in one of the villages he visited. Belafonte recounted his experience on the Muppet Show in 1979:

“That storyteller…began to tell this story about the fire, the sun, the water, the Earth. He pointed out that the whole of these things put together turns the world around. That all of us are here for a very very short time. In that time that we’re here, there really isn’t any difference in any of us, if we take the time to understand each other. The question is: Do I know who you are, or who I am? Do we care about each other? Because if we do, we can turn the world around.”

Ms. Audette chose to teach this song because it is dear to her heart. It speaks about how we can change the world when we begin to appreciate it and appreciate all living beings in it by “see[ing] one another clearly.” The song is filled with exuberant rhythmic clapping and percussive singing. While musically it is quite a contrast from “Let Beauty Awake,” it also confirms and continues the overarching message of appreciating the beauty of life around us.

Três Cantos Nativos

arr. Marcos Leite, based on songs from the Brazilian Kurao tribe

Rám.

Dekekeke korirare hê

Jaramutum korirare hê

Pátcho parare adjôsirê

Iuenerê kaporra djôsirê.

Uárite, uárite.

Kamarêra kidéri kema.

Tiôiremô uárite Aham. 

Composed in 1982, Três Cantos Nativos dos Indios Kraó is freely based on melodies sung by the Kraó, an indigenous Brazilian group who live in the Xingú river area of the Amazon forest of northwestern Brazil. The text has not been translated, and was treated by the composer as a group of phonemes. The Kraó are noted for being particularly creative musicians, and use an intricate combination of flutes and percussion instruments made of gourds and tree fruits to accompany their vocal music. This unusual piece is written to reflect the sounds and tonalities one might find in the Amazon, ranging from different tone production to incorporating the sounds of the rainforest, and our choristers worked hard to understand and produce the more nasal timbre required for this piece. 

Marcos Leite (1953-2002) was a Brazilian composer who was well known for incorporating the advanced harmonic and rhythmic language of bossa nova into his compositions, and for founding several ensembles and teaching at many music festivals across Brazil.

Music of Life

B.E. Boykin, poetry by George Parsons Lathrop

Music is in all growing things;

And underneath the silky wings

Of smallest insects there is stirred

A pulse of air that must be heard.

Earth’s silence lives, and throbs, and sings.

If poet from the vibrant strings

Of his poor heart a measure flings,

Laugh not, that he no trumpet blows,

It may be that Heaven hears and knows,

His language of low listenings.

Music is in all living things.

This vibrant setting of a poem by George Parsons Lathrop describes how music underpins all earthly life. An active piano part provides an energetic undercurrent to compelling vocal lines, with the voices beginning in unison before opening out into two and then three parts. “Music of Life” highlights the importance of even the smallest insect in creating the symphony of natural sounds we hear around us every day, and reminds us that if we look hard enough we can find music and beauty everywhere.

Alexandria, VA native B.E. Boykin is a composer, pianist, and educator who has won multiple awards for her choral and vocal compositions. She has arranged multiple spirituals and collaborated with multiple ACDA divisions, the Minnesota Opera, and The Kennedy Center, and currently works as professor of music at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

J’entends le Moulin

Traditional French-Canadian, arr. Donald Patriquin

J’entends le moulin tique tique taque.

Mon père a fait batir maison.

L’a fait batir à trois pignons.

Sont trois charpentiers qui la font.

Le plus jeune c’est mon mignon.

Qu’apportes-tu dans ton jupon?

C’est un pâté de trois pigeons.

Asseyons-nous et le mangeons.

En s’asseyant il fit un bond,

Qui fait trembler mer et poissons,

Et les cailloux qui sont au fond.

I hear the millwheel, tique tique taque.

My father is having a house built.

It’s being built with three gables.

There are three carpenters building it.

The youngest is my darling.

What do you have in your apron?

It’s a pie made of three pigeons.

Let’s sit down and eat it.

While sitting down they all lept up,

Causing the sea and fish to tremble,

And the stones on the bottom of the sea.

“J’entends le Moulin” is a beloved arrangement of a Quebeçois folk song, originally known in France as “Mon père a fait bâtir maison.” The quick-moving French text and virtuosic piano accompaniment make this piece a fun musical challenge for every part of the ensemble, and the nonsensical nature of the text makes communicating a narrative equally challenging. The French text is a bit illogical, and functions as a rhyming game in which each line’s final syllable must rhyme with “-tends.” The call-and-response setting of the vocal parts adds to the game-like feeling of the piece, with the text going back and forth between sopranos and altos as they finish each other’s musical sentences and build on previous phrases. Learning this piece has been great fun for our choristers!

Arranger Donald Patriquin, a composer and lecturer at McGill University in Montreal, wrote this piece as part of a series of arrangements of French Canadian folk melodies. He was drawn in by the evocative, percussive sounds of the mill wheel–a narrative staple in this song–and worked with a children’s choir at the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal to devise the melodic and rhythmic components that went with it.

Earthsongs

1. The World Is Full of Poetry

David L. Brunner, text by James Gates Percival

The world is full of poetry,

The air is living with its spirit;

And the waves dance to the music of its melodies

And sparkle in its brightness.

The texts of each song in the Earthsongs set speak of the wonders of nature and of the importance of protecting the animals, caring for the plants and nurturing one another. “The World is Full of Poetry” is a text by 19th century geologist James Gates Percival, who wrote many poems based on his observations of the natural world, and while the poem is brief and simple, there is something very profound about its unadorned praise for natural beauty. This mood is reflected in Brunner’s gentle piano accompaniment and lyrical unison vocal lines that slowly unfold into delicate two- and three-part harmonies, paired with lovely text painting (i.e. the fast-moving notes on the word “sparkle”). Any chorister knows that singing in unison can sometimes be the most difficult vocal task of all, and this piece gave our singers a lovely vehicle to showcase how beautiful simplicity can be. 

David L. Brunner is a prominent conductor, clinician, composer, pianist, and teacher who is currently professor emeritus at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Blue Skies
Irving Berlin, arr. Roger Emerson

Blue skies smilin’ at me.

Nothin’ but blue skies do I see.

Bluebirds singin’ a song.

Nothin’ but bluebirds all day long.

Never saw the sun shinin’ so bright,

Never saw things goin’ so right.

Noticing the days hurryin’ by,

When you’re in love, my how they fly.

Blue days, all of them gone.

Nothin’ but blue skies from now on.

“Blue Skies” is a jazz standard written by composer and lyricist Irving Berlin in 1926 for the Rodgers and Hart musical Betsy. The show only ran for 39 performances, but this particular song, sung by Belle Baker, was hugely successful on its own. It was first recorded and released publicly in 1927, and has been part of the standard jazz repertoire ever since. It has been recorded by many jazz greats, including Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald, and even featured in the film Star Trek: Nemesis. 

Irving Berlin (1888-1989) was born in Russia, but moved to the United States at the age of five and across his extremely long career became an integral part of the Great American Songbook with his estimated 1,500 original songs, which ranged from Broadway and film scores to jazz and ragtime standards. “Blue Skies” was written after his first daughter’s birth, and is allegedly about his feelings about being married and a father for the first time. The text waves goodbye to “blue days” with the arrival of “blue skies” instead, and equates a beautiful day with the feeling of being in love and seeing beauty everywhere.

Tunggare from Man to Tree

Stephen Leek

The only text found in “Tunggare” is the single titular word, an Australian Aboriginal word which means “to sing.” Perhaps the most famous Aboriginal music instrument is the didgeridoo, but Aboriginal Australians also have a rich culture of singing and dancing. In particular, songlines are an important piece of Aboriginal culture; songlines refer to invisible paths across the land that mark routes followed by Aboriginal deities during their creation myths, passed down orally. Individuals are able to navigate long distances using the words and melodies of the songs that correlate to these “dreaming tracks,” and they also contain vast amounts of oral history that trace family lines, ancestry, and local history and cosmology.

Stephen Leek, while not an Aboriginal composer, is Australian and writes a great deal of choral music that utilizes Australian national influences.

Loveliest of Trees

James Quitman Mulholland, poetry by A.E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Composer James Quitman Mulholland is currently a professor of music at Butler University in Indiana, where he has taught for many years. He professes a deep love for the lyricism and classical melodies of the British Isles, and that love is clearly demonstrated in his setting of A.E. Housman’s poem “Loveliest of Trees.” The flowing piano accompaniment and lush harmonies of the vocal parts provide a beautiful backdrop for the imagery-rich text, and the text-driven rhythms of the vocal lines required serious focus and attention to detail from our singers as the piano and the voices are often rhythmically offset. This piece is in many ways reminiscent of earlier British nationalist works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who inspired Mulholland’s compositional style and also set text by A.E. Housman in his song cycle On Wenlock Edge.

Music in the Air

African-American Spiritual, arr. Ryan Murphy

Over my head, I hear music in the air,

There must be a God somewhere.

And when I’m alone, I hear music in the air,

And when I’m afraid, I hear music in the air.

There must be a God somewhere.

And when it’s dark, I hear music in the air,

And when I’m weary, I hear music in the air.

There must be a God somewhere!

The text of this piece has existed in many formats since the 19th century, both as a spiritual and as a styled gospel or jazz piece beginning with its first recording by The Southern Sons in 1941. Alternately titled “Up Above My Head,” “Above My Head I Hear Music in the Air,” and “Over My Head,” this melody and text has been recorded many times, most famously in 1947 by “godmother of rock ‘n’ roll” Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight for Decca Records and again in 1961 by Bernice Johnson Reagon, a song leader and social activist who is also a founding member of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Johnson Reagon was also the first recorded to change the traditional words to “I see freedom in the air.” 

Arranger Ryan Murphy has worked as the associate music director of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square since 2009 in partnership with music director and famed composer Mack Wilberg. His arrangement of “Music in the Air” retains much of the call-and-response nature and harmonic structure of the spiritual tradition it is born from while pairing it with a rhythmically driving piano accompaniment that harkens back to some of the earlier recordings of this piece.

Awake the Harp from The Creation

Joseph Haydn, libretto by Gottfried van Swieten

Awake the harp, the lyre awake,

And let your joyful song resound.

Rejoice in the Lord, the mighty God;

For He both heaven and earth has clothed in stately dress.

“Awake the Harp” is one of the most famous choruses from Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, written between 1797 and 1798 and premiered publicly in Vienna in 1799. It draws text from three key sources: the Biblical book of Genesis, the book of Psalms, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost to tell a story of the creation of the world as described in the Christian Bible. The actual individual who compiled these sources into a cohesive libretto is unknown, though it’s commonly attributed to Gottfried van Swieten, and the libretto was given to Haydn by German impresario Johann Peter Salomen, who had conducted many of Haydn’s symphonies and knew him fairly well. The Creation was extremely successful, and continues to be performed today both excerpted and in full across the world by professional and amateur ensembles alike. Originally written for soloists, chorus, and a full symphonic orchestra, this particular chorus features an exciting fugue that requires great agility and rhythmic integrity from singers.

Wau Bulan

Malaysian Folk Song, arr. Tracy Wong

Ewah buleh, teraju tigo,

Alah ewah teraju tigo

Wow, the three-cornered moon,

Wow, the three-cornered moon.

“Wau Bulan” is a folk song and dance that originates from Malaysia. It is performed in the Dikir Barat style whereby performers sit in rows on the floor or stage to sing and do choreographed hand and body movements. Dikir Barat is usually performed by Malaysians as a way of preserving and cultivating the Malay community culture of song and dance. The flexibility of this style of performance allows the music to be adapted to various settings and performers. Performers are also encouraged to come up with new lyrics to any existing tune. “Wau Bulan” describes the beauty of the Malaysian traditional kite (wau) with a rounded bottom shaped like a half moon (bulan) as it flies high up in the sky.

– Tracy Wong

Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda

1. Hymn to the Dawn
2. Hymn to the Waters

Gustav Holst

I. Hymn to the Dawn

Hear our hymn O Goddess,

Rich in wealth and wisdom,

Ever young yet ancient,

True to Law Eternal.

Wak’ner of the songbirds,

Ensign of th’Eternal,

Draw thou near O Fair one,

In thy radiant Chariot

Bring to her your off’ring,

Humbly bow before her,

Raise your songs of welcome,

As she comes in splendour.

II. Hymn to the Waters

Flowing from the firmament forth to the ocean,

Healing all earth and air, never halting.

Indra, Lord of Heav’n formed their courses,

Indra’s mighty laws can never be broken.

Cleansing waters flow ye on, hasten and help us.

Lo, in the waters, dwelleth One,

Knower of all on earth and sea,

Whose dread command no man may shun,

Varuna, sovran Lord is He.

Onward ye waters onward hie,

Dance the bright beams of the sun.

Obey the ruler of the sky

Who dug the path for you to run.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was an English composer, arranger, and teacher who is best known for his orchestral suite The Planets. Much like Vaughan Williams, he was composing during a time of rising nationalism and attempted to contribute to that trend musically through the use of folk songs, modal scales, and inspirations from myth and legend. In the course of composing pieces that utilized British folk tunes, Holst, like many of his British contemporaries, also developed a fascination with Hinduism and South Asian mythology that led him to set a series of texts from the Rigveda, a collection of Sanskrit vedic hymns that discuss cosmology, the nature of the divine, and other spiritual and religious topics. Holst is widely known for utilizing whole-tone scales in his compositions, and his Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda combine that technique with some experimentation in the Indian rāga system. Click here to learn more about rāga.

Both “Hymn to the Dawn” and “Hymn to the Waters” feature a harp accompaniment that alternately lend feelings of etherealness and water in motion that correlate to the nature-focused texts of these pieces. In studying these pieces, choristers considered how instruments can help evoke the sounds of nature and the specific unnameable feelings that nature can give to us, and worked hard to settle into Holst’s gorgeous, dense harmonies that are often a little tricky to navigate. Holst has a very distinct way of communicating natural beauty, and the merging of styles and influences represented in Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda produces a unique perspective on the natural world.

Sing Creations Music On

Stephen Paulus, poetry by John Clare

Sing creations music on!

Natures glee is in ev’ry mood and tone.

Eternity.

Natures universal tongue Singeth here,

Songs I’ve heard and felt and seen

Ev’rywhere.

Songs like the grass are evergreen.

Ev’rywhere.

The giver said live and be and they have been Forever.

Sing creations music on!

Poet John Clare (1793-1864) was an Englishman from a farming family who grew up in England’s rural working class. He has posthumously been christened as a major poet of the 19th century, but during his lifetime he struggled to balance his desire to write and publish his poetry with the need to work in his community and support his much poorer friends, neighbors, and family. He is particularly noted for refusing to use any sort of standardized grammar or linguistic structure in his writing, choosing instead to write in his own dialect and with rural flair. 

Stephen Paulus (1949-2014) composed “Sing Creations Music On” as part of a cycle of John Clare settings entitled Songs Eternity. The piano accompaniment of this piece alternates between bouncy rhythmic sections and more lyrical, sustained passages, supporting rangy vocal writing that conveys the “nature’s glee” that undergirds the entire poem. Like many of the pieces on this program, “Sing Creations Music On” offered our students the chance to think about the many ways that “songs like the grass are evergreen everywhere,” surrounding us with music no matter which direction we look.

Hotaru Koi

Japanese Children’s Song, arr. Rō Ogura

Ho, ho, hotaru koi

Atchi no mizu wa nigai zo,

Kotchi no mizu wa amai zo,

Ho, ho, yama michi koi.

Hotaru no otosan kanemochi da,

Dori de oshiri ga pikapika da.

Hiruma wa kusaba no tsuyu no kage,

Yoru wa ponpon, taka chochin.

Tenjiku agari shitareba,

Tsunbakura ni sarawarebe.

Ando no hikari o chotto mite, koi

Ho, ho, hotaru koi

Ho, ho, yama michi koi.

Ho, ho, firefly, come, 

There’s some water that’s bitter to taste,

Come, here’s some water that’s sweet to your taste;

Ho, firefly, ho, up this mountain path.

Firefly’s daddy struck it rich, so he’s got lots of dough,

No wonder that his rear end sparkles in the dark.

In the daytime hiding amongst the dewy blades of grass,

But when it’s night, his lantern burns bright.

Even though we’ve flown all the way from India, zoom!

And those sparrows swarm to swallow us.

Look! See a thousand lanterns sparkling in the dark,

Ho, ho, firefly, come, 

Ho, up this mountain path.

“Hotaru Koi” is based on a popular Japanese children’s song, where the narrator is chasing fireflies and trying to entice them to come closer. The staggered vocal lines, with their exclamations of “ho!,” are aural representations of the way fireflies blink in and out when darkness falls, and the fading in and out of multiple parts at once imitate the sound of a firefly buzzing past your ear. This performance of “Hotaru Koi” also incorporates small blinking lights to add to the atmosphere of a mountain evening and to imitate the fireflies’ glow.

Composer Rō Ogura (1916-1990) was a Japanese composer and writer who, following the example of many composers of the 20th century, found great inspiration in the folk songs and children’s songs of his country. He arranged “Hotaru Koi” as part of a song cycle entitled Nine Pieces on Children’s Songs of Tohoku Region, published in 1958. Of these, “Hotaru Koi” is the only piece available widely in the United States.

Earth Song

Frank Ticheli

Sing, Be, Live, See.

This dark stormy hour,

The wind, it stirs.

The scorched earth

Cries out in vain:

O war and power,

You blind and blur,

The torn heart

Cries out in pain.

But music and singing

Have been my refuge,

And music and singing

Shall be my light.

A light of song

Shining strong: Alleluia!

Through darkness, pain, and strife, I'll

Sing, Be, Live, See...

Peace.

Composer Frank Ticheli has described “Earth Song” as a work that is a cry for peace above all else. Written during the height of the Iraq War, Ticheli describes feeling the need to give voice to his feelings of tiredness while also wishing for peace, comfort, and refuge. Since its publication, many conductors and critics have also interpreted this piece as a call to action in the fight for climate justice, or a more general commentary on how music can provide a safe, accepting, loving environment for those who need it. This piece moves in and out of dissonance and consonance, requiring a strong sense of pitch and independence from our singers, and offers a sense of hope in the face of destruction that can be found through singing together.

Omnis Terra, from Jubilate Deo

Dan Forrest

Omnis terra, jubilate,

Omnis terra, laudate,

Omnis terra, jubilate Deo!

Sing for joy, dance in gladness,

Shout for joy, all the earth!

Dan Forrest’s Jubilate Deo brings to life the global aspect of the traditional Psalm 100 text, “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands,” by setting it in seven different languages and drawing from a wide spectrum of musical influences. Each movement combines some characteristics of its language-group’s musical culture with the composer’s own musical language. Movements include liturgical Latin, intertwined Hebrew and Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Zulu, Spanish, Song of the Earth (untexted), and a closing movement combining several of these languages with English. The result is a stunning global celebration of joy, as all the earth sings as one, “omnis terra, jubilate!”

– Dan Forrest

Flight Song

Kim André Arnesen, poetry by Euan Tait

All we are, we have found in song:

You have drawn this song from us.

Songs of lives unfolding

Fly overhead, cry overhead:

Longing, rising from the song within.

Moving like the rise and fall of wings,

Hands that shape our calling voice

On the edge of answers

You’ve heard our cry, you’ve known our cry:

Music’s fierce compassion flows from you.

The night is restless with the sounds we hear,

Is broken, shaken by the cries of pain:

For this is music’s inner voice,

Saying yes, we hear you,

All you who cry aloud,

And we will fly, answering you:

So our lives sing, sing,

Wild we will fly,

Wild in spirit we will fly.

Like a feather falling from the wing,

Fragile as a human voice,

Afraid, uncertain,

Alive in love, we sing as love,

Afraid, uncertain,

Yet our flight begins as song.

Kim André Arnesen’s “Flight Song” was written in 2014 as Arnesen’s first collaboration with Welsh poet Euan Tait. Arnesen describes it as follows:

“The imagery sings of each singer’s hidden song, and the conductor drawing that song from the singers: their hidden, unfolding life stories, their deep longings. The arms of the conductor, like great wings, shape the singing; music is compassion, and the singers’ longing is to fly towards others’ suffering. The final message is that music-making is the song of new life, fragile as the fall of a feather.”

This special piece was selected for our seniors this year because music has clearly played such a major part in their lives so far; from keeping us connected during the pandemic to getting us through the stress and busyness of high school, each week we’ve all come together to slow down and spend some focused time making music together and lifting each other up. This is a special thing to have experienced, and it is our biggest hope that as these seniors’ “flights begin” that they will carry the music we’ve made together with them as they continue on to their next chapters.

What a Wonderful World

George David Weiss and Bob Thiele, arr. Mark Hayes

I see trees of green,

Red roses, too.

I see them bloom

For me and you

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue

And clouds of white,

The bright blessed day,

The dark sacred night,

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow,

So pretty in the sky,

Are also on the faces

Of the people goin’ by.

I see friends shakin’ hands,

Sayin’ “how do you do?”

They’re really sayin’,

“I love you.”

I hear babies cry,

I watch them grow.

They’ll learn much more

Than I’ll ever know,

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world.

Yes I think to myself

What a wonderful world.

I see rainbows and blue skies

And moonbeams and butterflies,

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world!

Our closing piece, “What a Wonderful World,” is a verified American classic, first recorded in 1967 by jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong. Written by American songwriters George David Weiss and Bob Thiele (under the name Geroge Douglas), many arrangements and recordings of this song have been created in the past 56 years, and its influence and popularity extends beyond the United States. We selected this piece to close our concert because the text so perfectly sums up the concert’s overarching theme of seeing beauty all around us, in every tree and bird and baby’s smile. The theme of Earthsongs for our season certainly includes learning to appreciate natural beauty, but it also reminds us of the importance of engaging with and learning from each other and from diverse perspectives all around the world.