Choral Chameleon: 2019 Summer Institute Program

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

Sicut Cervus Erik Stenswold, conductor

Ubi Caritas Bryan Lin, conductor

The Sometimes Joy of Reminiscing

Water Rites (mvts. IV & V)

Scissors

Enter

Calamus V (Throwing Flowers at Ghosts)

The Blue Bird Ethan Starr, conductor

Yver, vous n'estes qu'un villain!

Harry Whitney, conductor

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Maurice Duruflé

Zachary James Ritter

Derek J. Weagle

Lili Tobias Daniel Zlatkin

Christopher Ruenes

Charles Villiers Stanford

Claude Debussy

INTERMISSION

Hymn to St. Cecilia Harry Whitney, conductor

Starting Here, Starting Now Erik Stenswold, conductor

Stars

Ave Maris Stella

Babel

Pieces of My Heart

Herbert Howells

Richard Maltby and David Shire arr. Vince Peterson

Julia Jacklein João Fonseca e Costa

Pedro F. Finisterra

Lauren Bydalek

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

1/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

Kyrie

Guest House

Pluck the fruit and taste the pleasure Ethan Starr, conductor

Heaven Help Us All arr. Kathleen McGuire Bryan Lin, conductor

Alexander Goodhart

Edward Thompson

Libby Larsen

Ronald Miller

Text and Program Notes

Sicut Cervus – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, Just as the hart longs for flowing streams, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.

so does my soul long for you, O God.

– Psalm 42:1

Ubi Caritas – Maurice Duruflé

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Where there is charity and love, God is there.

Congregavit nos in unum, Christi amor.

Christ’s love gathers us together as one.

Exultemus et in ipso, jucundemur.

Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him. Timeamus et amemus Deum vivum.

Let us fear and love the living God. Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

And may we love each other with sincere heart.

Amen.

Amen.

The Sometimes Joy of Reminiscing – Zachary James Ritter

I carry you in the grooves of me Deep and jagged with the memories Every now and then I Dive into them.

Swimming inside those edges.

And I soar within the music we made.

– Zachary James Ritter

We've all lost a loved one in one way or another. The Sometimes Joy of Reminiscing is an opportunity to reflect on what those loved ones left with you in their absence. I invite you to think back on your favorite memories with someone, someone no longer close.

Think about how those memories have made you who you are today.

Water Rites – Derek J. Weagle IV. Razed V. Deep

IV. Razed (бeƀæђ)

dʼşҩñoxviiбeђlogg, xɹaþ fåђačë: Tell me, burnt earth: jùz̧ʼåz̧ҁoɹo jùþū q̈āāşii?

Is there no water? sāānsaҁяii soþo? xod soþo?

Only blood? Only Dust? ñosҁҩṙidiijҩl ҁōm

̃ q̈āāşii heþūviiɹiiλæn; I am the water­god; ¡ŋʼhesomočëşomin!

I will make you whole!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

2/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

V. Deep (ҁɹaavisq̈e)

čalam ̃ jҩl ŋowo şҩñoxviičañaaṙlogg, Deep sea, øeq̈ɔşş ҁɹaavisq̈e sing your song. ocāā dʼşҩñoxviiaҁëndiiggi.

Lure me in. wefāā dʼşҩñoxjūūmelogg.

Guide me on. eq̈iijҩl dʼşҩñoxviiaҁëndiiggi.

Give me rest. ҁiivҩn ploşmojҩl q̈āāşiiʼaþ, Like petals on the water, pahāāяo, Gracefully, vҩяvwefāā ŋowo hesomozūnčmaa, I depart from your shore, Λelū.

Beyond.

– Derek J. Weagle, Language, Text, & Translation

Water Rites was born as a convergence of many ideas and aspirations: 1. To create an original, living language that mimicked the sounds of water, 2. To examine the concept of a ritual and its performative but healing nature, 3. To begin a body of Pagan‐centric choral literature.

The six rites contained in this work trace the outline of a life from birth to death. Today, you will hear the final two: бeƀæђ (' Razed ') depicting the carnage of war and a craving for spiritual fulfillment after a devastating loss, and ҁɹaavisq̈e (' Deep '), an imagined, self‐administered rite for one's final moments of life.

The work ends with our High Priestess (the solo alto) chanting "like petals on the water, I depart from your shore" as the choir gently repeats "λelū..." ("beyond") in the background like receding waves. The work ends in the sounds of a water, a liminal space between life and death.

Scissors – Lili Tobias

Don't let anyone tell you a word is "unsingable"!

Enter – Daniel Zlatkin

Enter this place, all around you.

Listen around, all around you.

Feel the quietness in the air.

Sense the presences that abound Feel inside this thin place.

this thin place.

Thought. Breath.

Celtic folklore from Scotland and Ireland tells of thin places, locations where the veil between earth and somewhere else blurs. Sometimes these places exude a soothing quietness, being cut off from the bustle of society, but other times more sinister forces may be at work. My work imagines the beginning of a journey through a thin place, as one begins to feel reality's fabric peel off around them.

"You see, here time becomes space."

– Gurnemanz, Parsifal

Calamus V (Throwing Flowers at Ghosts) – Chris Ruenes

THESE I singing in spring collect for lovers, (For who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow and joy?

And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)

Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates, Now along the pond‐side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,

Now by the post‐and‐rail fences where the old stones thrown there, pick'd from the fields, have accumulated, (Wild‐flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them—Beyond these I pass,) Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I think where I go,

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

3/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence, Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me, Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck, They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle, Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them, Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me; Here! lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live‐oak in Florida as it hung trailing down, Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside, (O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again never to separate from me, And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus‐root shall, Interchange it youths with each other! let none render it back!)

And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut, And stems of currants and plum‐blows, and the aromatic cedar: These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits, Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me, Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to each; But what I drew from the water by the pond‐side, that I reserve, I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am capable of loving.

– Walt Whitman

With NYC Pride Weekend (!!!) in mind: Recently I read parts of Calamus for the first time, and was delighted to find how weird & queer the poems are.

Calamus V in particular resonates with some understandings I have of my own queerness, which I tried to capture in how I set this poem.

I certainly associate my excitability with queerness; and I find the image of being suddenly surrounded by the (living or dead) ghosts of all of the people who give me the most joy, scrambling to find the right fruit or flower to throw at each person, a compelling (and relatable) expression of the excitability I'm talking about.

Whitman also captures something less clear to me, but which has to do with sliding between things that seem discrete, through connections that may not be apparent. I am focusing on the parentheticals that interject tender reflections of a lover who has been here (but seems currently absent) into the middle of throwing flowers around. The word "here" in this passage serves as that hidden connection — a setting that materializes suddenly and connects multiple modes of love together — and figures prominently in this piece (as does the word "I" ;) ).

The Blue Bird – Charles Villiers Stanford

The lake lay blue below the hill, The sky above was blue at last, O’er it, as I looked, there flew

The sky beneath me blue in blue, Across the waters, cold and still, A moment, ere the bird had passed, A bird whose wings were palest blue.

It caught his image as he flew.

– Mary E. Coleridge

Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain! – Claude Debussy from Trois Chansons

Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain!

Winter, you are nothing but a villain!

Esté est plaisant et gentil, Summer is pleasant and kind, En tesmoing de May et d’Avril

as we see from May and April, Qui l’acompaignent soir et main. which accompany it evening and morn.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

4/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

Esté revest champs, bois et fleurs, Summer clothes fields, woods, and flowers, De sa livree de verdure

with its livery of green Et de maintes autres couleurs,

and many other hues, Par l’ordonnance de Nature. by the order of Nature.

Mais vous, Yver, trop estes plain But you, Winter, are too full De neige, vent, pluye, et grezil;

of snow, wind, rain, and sleet; On vous deust bannier en exil.

we must send you into exile.

Sans point flater, je parle plein: I am no flatterer and I speak plainly: Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain!

Winter, you are nothing but a villain!

– Charles D’Orléans

Hymn to St. Cecilia – Herbert Howells

Sing for the morning’s joy, Cecilia, sing, in words of youth and phrases of the Spring, walk the bright colonnades by fountains’ spray, and sing as sunlight fills the waking day; till angels voyaging in upper air pause on a wing and gather the clear air into celestial joy, wound and unwound a silver chain, or golden as your hair.

Sing for your loves of heaven and of earth, in words of music, and each word a truth; marriage of heart and longings that aspire, a bond of roses, and a ring of fire.

Your summertime grows short and fades away, terror must gather to a martyr’s death; but never tremble, the last indrawn breath remembers music as an echo may.

Through the cold aftermath of centuries Cecilia’s music dances in the skies, lend us a fragment of the immortal air, that with your choiring angels we may share, a word to light us thro’ time‐fettered night,

Water of life, or rose of paradise So from the earth another song shall rise To meet your own in heaven’s long delight.

– Ursula Vaughan Williams

Starting Here, Starting Now – Richard Maltby and David Shire

Starting here, starting now, when we walk, we’ll walk together year by year.

Starting here, starting now, when we talk, we will say the most with silence when we’re near.

Starting here, starting now, when you sleep, you will dream a dream that’s free from care for now.

When you wake, I’ll be there.

So be still, take my hand, for the greatest journey heaven can allow.

Starting love, starting here, starting now.

Stars – Julia Jacklein

Alone in the night

Up the dome of heaven On a dark hill

Like a great hill, With pines around me

I watch them marching Spicy and still,

Stately and still.

And a heaven full of stars

And I know that Over my head,

I Am honored to be White and topaz Witness And misty red;

Of so much majesty.

Myriads with beating

Hearts of fire The aeons Cannot vex or tire; – Sara Teasdale

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

5/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

The nighttime sky has long appealed to me as a particularly rich source of inspiration for a possible composition. The breathtaking silence and solitude, and the sheer opulence of constellation upon constellation in a sky untouched by any other light—all these have a deep beauty of their own.

When I read Sara Teasdale's evocative poem for the first time, I knew I wanted to set it to music.

The poem expresses awe and wonder, and gratitude for the beauty of the heavens, all of which I aimed to bring to life musically. At different points in the piece, voices sparkle and shimmer like stars, rise upward majestically, or evoke the hymn‐like sound of a prayer of thanksgiving.

The music builds from a hushed beginning to an expressive climax, suggesting the wide arc of the "dome of heaven," alive with countless stars. Then the piece gently winds down, allowing us to return from the stars to ourselves and the earth.

Ave Maris Stella – João Fonseca e Costa

Ave Maris Stella

Monstra te esse matrem,

Vitam praesta puram, Dei alma mater

sumat per te precem

iter para tutum atque semper virgo,

qui pro nobis natus

ut videntes Jesum felix coeli porta.

tulit esse tuus.

semper collaetemur.

Sumens illud "Ave"

Virgo singularis,

Sit laus Deo Patri, Gabrielis ore,

inter omnes mitis,

summo Christo decus, funda nos in pace,

nos culpis solutos

Spiritui Sancto

mutans evae nomen.

mites fac et castos.

Tribus honor unus.

Solve vincula reis,

profer lumen caecis, mala nostra pelle, bona cuncta posce.

Amen.

Ave Maris Stella is one of the most beautiful sacred texts, which is a Hymn to Mary. The text says that Mary will be the key to free people from their sins, because she is carrying the Savior of the World. For me this is a very powerful text, so I wrote the piece with rich harmonies and a large texture, which I believe is the right path to make something about this text and myself.

This piece was written during the 2019 Choral Chameleon Summer Institute in New York, so I want to thank Choral Chameleon for this great opportunity and fantastic week, which I will never forget. Choral Chameleon has conquered my heart.

Babel – P edro F. Finisterra

Lost

Lost Lost the

Words are Words are

Went too Lost

Babel Tower went too high

Words are Babel Understand me Do you understand me?

Words are Babel

Words are Babel

Babel Words are

Babel

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

6/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

Went too high

Ba – Ba Do you understand?

Ba

– Edward Einhorn

Translations of the original poem into multiple languages made by: Armando Possante, Bjorn Vandenneucker, Carmen Artaza, Carolina Alexandra, Christos Callow Jr., Giovanni Zaniol, Jack Wong, Jean­Phillippe Drécourt, Julia Owczarek, Junzuo Li, Laura Farré Rozada, Laura Hildebrandt, Margarida Espiguinha, Maria VA Soares, Mia Søndergaard Nielsen, Nasr­Eddine Lalaoui, Nilufar Habibian, Ofer Ben­Amots, Pedro F. Finisterra, Pedro Manuel Finisterra, Rosa van Alphen, Vova & Vova's mum.

In Genesis 11: 1‐9, the story of the creation of the Tower of Babel is narrated. Seeing that this monument was getting so tall that it was almost reaching the heavens, God decided to scatter humanity through the world and give them different languages so that they would not be able to communicate with each other.

Through this piece, using an already scattered poem

by Edward Einhorn based on this story, and translations of it over into 20 languages, and by creating scales based on the division of the major 7th (11 semitones) from 1 to 9 I try to symbolically illustrate the scattering of one language (in this case English) into a multitude of others and generate the form and pitch material for this piece based on the section of the Bible in which this story is told.

Pieces of My Heart – Lauren Bydalek

I have left pieces of my heart All across the world And I have been working my whole life Just to leave where I've come from

Searching for answers to the questions I didn't know Craving freedom from the black and white routine

Some have the path fall before them

Some are caught, entangled Venturing to make a way Through a journey not foreseen

And now that I've wandered a distance away I don't even know where I'd go Besides the places that I've been Or the one that I call home

Taking for granted the wide open spaces Ignoring a sky brimming with kaleidoscope sunsets

I have left pieces of my heart All across the world But they're not left in the places I've been They're with the people I've met

– Lauren Bydalek

The inspiration for this piece came out of a period of major transitions in my life. The lyrics tell a story of where I've been and my relationship to where I grew up. When I was young, I always wanted to leave Lincoln, Nebraska, but over the years, I've come to appreciate it more and more. I had taken for granted the simplistic beauty of the plains in the Midwest.

Beyond that, I've come to realize home isn't as much a place as it is a feeling. I truly believe I've left a little of myself with everyone who I have connected with over the years.

Kyrie – Alexander Goodhart

Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy.

Christe eleison.

Christ, have mercy.

Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy.

The prayer spoken in my piece is a vital one in the Christian liturgy. For those unfamiliar, it is a fairly plaintive prayer for forgiveness, addressed to God ("Kyrie") and his son, Christ.

For this musical setting, each of prayer's three lines will personify a different kind of appeal to the Lord:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

7/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

the first being one of suffering supplication, the second as a loving worship, and the last a mysterious and existential faith.

Guest House – Edward Thompson

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

– Jalal ad‐Din Muhammad Rumi (1207‐1273) (trans. Coleman Barks)

One of the functions of a great poem is to take an element of our every‐day life and make us aware of it or bring us a new understanding of it. That is precisely what Rumi does in the short poem. He seems to be implying that instead of judging anything, simply observe and let it go, knowing that it somehow has a function is this mysterious thing we call life. To put it another way, don't take anything too seriously; laugh at those emotional states instead of judging them.

To put it in yet another way, Epictetus says "It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance." What I attempted to do in this piece was to take some of the various emotional 'colors' of the poem and project them through a musical lens in order to better experience the flow that Rumi describes. In that process it might be possible to understand ourselves a bit better.

Pluck the fruit and taste the pleasure – Libby Larsen from Songs of Youth and Pleasure

Pluck the fruit and taste the pleasure,

Here on Earth, nothing is stable.

Youthful lordlings of delight.

Fortune’s changes are well known.

While occasion gives you seizure, While as youth doth then enable, Feed your fancies and your sight.

Let your seed of joy be sown.

After death, when youth is gone,

Joy and pleasure there is none.

– Thomas Lodge

Heaven Help Us All – Ronald Miller

Heaven help the child that never had a home, Heaven help all the girls who walk the streets alone.

Heaven help the roses if bombs begin to fall, Heaven help us all.

Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day, Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away.

Heaven help the man who kicks the man and make him crawl, Heaven help us all.

Please help the boy that won’t reach twenty‐one, Heaven help the man that gave that boy a gun.

Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall, Heaven help us all.

Heaven help us all.

Heaven help us, Lord, Hear our call.

When we fall, Heaven help us all.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

8/9

6/28/2019

Program Draft - 19.06.28 CC Institute Concert - Google Docs

This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

About Choral Chameleon

Choral Chameleon is a choir known for championing new music for voices, programming multiple musical genres together and for frequently presenting their programs with non‐traditional staging. The company has premiered over 150 original compositions and arrangements to date.

Founded in New York in 2008, by Artistic Director Vince Peterson, the Company encompasses: a professional ensemble, a volunteer chorus of 40+ and an annual week‐long Summer Institute for composers and conductors. Choral Chameleon was 2017‐2018 Group in Residence at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.

The culture of the organization marries informality, loving support and joyful curiosity, with the expectation of solidly technical musicianship, constant learning and openness towards the unexpected.

Choral Chameleon was the 2015 recipient of Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming and, in recognition of his work with Choral Chameleon over the past decade, Vince Peterson was the 2018 recipient of the Chorus America Louis Botto Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Zeal.

In addition to the Company’s self‐produced programs, recent appearances and collaborations in the past 2 Seasons have included: Philip Glass ‘Madrigal Opera’ directed by R.B. Schlather at National Sawdust, ‘Taylor Mac: A 24‐Decade History of Popular Music’ 24‐hour marathon show at St Ann’s Warehouse, ‘The Gauntlet’ immersive choral installation with Sxip Shirey at Ferus Festival at National Sawdust and at MakeMusicNewYork Festival.

Want to support Choral Chameleon?

Your donation will help fund another season’s worth of adventurous programming, like the event you are experiencing tonight, as well as support the costs of the Choral Chameleon Summer Institute for composers and conductors which cannot solely be met by fees.

Donations can be made directly at any time via our website homepage at www.choralchameleon.com

If online donations are not your thing and you prefer written checks, or if you would like to explore further how you can support our work, you are welcome to speak to our President, Michael Squitieri, at michael@choralchameleon.com.

Stay in Touch!

Keep up with the latest information by signing up for our newsletter at www.choralchamelon.com Facebook: /choralchameleon Twitter: @choralchameleon Instagram: @choralchameleon https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nhgFj4TD3GDNTZfXaaUYVSUSD5exF16Pzg7ys5M1fg0/edit?ts=5d15331b

9/9