Cor Flammae presents: REFUGE

presents

REFUGE an exploration of found and created safety and shelter through the music of queer composers

July 15th, 2015 | 7:30pm

Christ Church Cathedral | 690 Burrard St

July 16th, 2015 | 7:30pm

Pyatt Hall | 843 Seymour St

Conducted by Mark Reid Mark McGregor, flute Robin Reid, percussion Stephen Smith, piano

Cor Flammae is:

Mark Reid, 2016 Guest Conductor Soprano

Julia Callander Missy Clarkson edzi’u Elyse Kantonen Lau Mehes Heather Molloy*

Tenor

Eric Biskupski* Tom Ellis Bruce Hoffman Michael Park Marcus Petrunia Aaron Purdie

Alto

Ann Chen** Beth Busby Megan Dray sid hawkins Peggy Hua Hilary Ison* Caitlin Robinson

Bass

Peter Alexander* Alex Gowans Troy Martell Shane Raman** Javier RodriguezMartin Ted Steiner

* Soloist ** Section Leader

Creative Team

Managing Director, Webmistress Missy Clarkson

Print Design, Donor Relations Amelia Pitt-Brooke Marketing Coordinator Bruce Hoffman Associate Conductor Peggy Hua Repertoire Committee Shane Raman (Chair), Missy Clarkson, Bruce Hoffman, Mark Reid Programme Notes: Missy Clarkson, Amelia Pitt-Brooke

Thank yous: Peter Alexander Eric Banks Joseph Bardsley Connie Buna Chaplyn Christ Church Cathedral Adam Dickson Early Music Vancouver East Van Graphics Jessica Farnsworth Paul Gravette Kaitlyn Heck Bruce Hoffman Ray Hsu Rachel Iwaasa Paula Kremer Greg McKinnon Mark McGregor Joanna Pang

Michael Park Dawn Pemberton Robin Reid Cristie Rosling Rodney Sharman Belinda Siu Stephen Smith Kristina Strong Switchdef Media Umbrella Events Lexie Zhang

Wardrobe Stylist Adam Dickson Volunteer Coordinator Maryanne Wong

Lucia Salazar Jen Schmidt Lucy Smith Linda Webster Natasha Wright Jennifer Wong

Volunteers Hayfa Abi-Chahine Rita Attrot Tamara Brown Ryan Cho Maris Colby Kiyomi Hori Nina Horvath Catherine Laub Sarah McGrath Lee Newman Mandy Norton

COVER PHOTOS BY ANNA ANAKA PHOTOGRAPHY | CONCEPT + WARDROBE BY ADAM DICKSON

REFUGE: Sanctuary / City

A selection of works by queer composers exploring shelter, found + created July 15th, 2016 - Christ Church Cathedral | July 16th, 2016 - Pyatt Hall

Ubi Caritas David Conte (1955) Churchyard Entertainment

Meredith Monk (1942) arr. Missy Clarkson

Solo: Heather Molloy

Quanti mercanarii

Dominique Phinot (1510-1556)

Darest thou now, O Soul

Shane Raman (1978)

Ave Regina Caelorum

Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704)

Solos: Ann Chen, Missy Clarkson

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

Solos: Heather Molloy, Eric Biskupski, Hilary Ison, Peter Alexander

A Little Golden Cloud

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

what happens now?

Michael Park (1983)

Solos: Caitlin Robinson, Michael Park, Javier Rodriguez-Martin Flute: Mark McGregor

Advance Democracy

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

song about forgetfulness

Rodney Sharman (1958)

From this hour, Freedom!

Stephen Smith (1966)

It Takes a Village

Joan Szymko (1957)

Solos: Megan Dray, Hilary Ison, Lau Mehes, Aaron Purdie, Beth Busby, edzi’u, Shane Raman Percussion: Robin Reid, Mark Reid, Stephen Smith

Selection from MASS

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Instrumentalists: Mark McGregor (flute), Robin Reid (percussion), Stephen Smith (piano) DEVOTIONS BEFORE MASS

GLORIA

THE LORD’S PRAYER

PAX: COMMUNION

Antiphon: Kyrie Eleison Hymn and Psalm: “A Simple Song” Responsory: Alleluia

Gloria Tibi Gloria in Excelsis Trope: “Half of the People”

Our Father

Chorale:

Solos: Heather Molloy, Shane Raman, Aaron Purdie, Bruce Hoffman

Solo: Bruce Hoffman

Solo: Peter Alexander

“Almighty Father”

Welcome This year, our concerts seek to draw on the queer outsider experience to build a lateral compassion for all who seek refuge and hope. This is particularly relevant in light of the current crucial necessity of welcoming refugees to Canada, and in nuturing a multi-ethnic nation that celebrates a multiplicity of perspectives and identities. By reflecting on the ways queer people have been excluded and how we have built refuge in the face of hardship, often through art and music, we can offer our history of survival and difference as a point of meditation on the ongoing need to build tolerant and diverse Canadian communities.

Sometimes a refuge looks like a church, or a new place to live, and sometimes it looks like a nightclub. When the shooting happened at Pulse in Orlando, taking 49 lives and wounding 53, queer people everywhere were reminded that the history of violence towards us is far from over. Most of the victims were Latinix - people who may have also faced additional struggles against xenophobia and racism - and as we mourn and continue building safe spaces we must also consider who is able to access those spaces and how we can create a culture that is truly welcoming for all.

The repertoire tonight addresses the habits of mind and conditions that create an authentic base for refuge: charity, free thought, democracy, peace, community, acceptance, co-habitation, and identity. By giving voice to queer composers and artists in a musical language, we affirm their complex identities as queer people and as musical people. We hope that by paying tribute to the intersected identities of artists in the choral oeuvre we can further the conversation about what it means to build the diverse world needed today, and ask the audience how bridges can be built out of difference to offer refuge.

You can make a difference in an LGBTQ refugee’s life!

Did you know that: • it is a crime in 70+ countries to be LGBTQ+?

• 10 countries currently sentence LGBTQ+ people to be put to death?

RAINBOW REFUGEE is an all-volunteer organization that workswith refugees in crisis to escape violence.

Here are a few ways that you can help: • Donations go directly to support LGBTQ+ / HIV+ refugees coming to Canada!

• Consider joining a refugee sponsorship circle!

Come to a no-obligation Rainbow Refugee info-session.

Find out more at: info@rainbowrefugee.ca

Conductor’s Notes on Tonight’s Programme Programming and preparing a concert that celebrates people is a fulfilling experience. Greater than that, however, is sharing it with an audience poised to embrace this talented ensemble. The music we share here is a collection that captures charity and love, ambiguity and challenge, conflict and solitude, memory and future, freedom and community. It speaks to the determination of those who seek refuge and to the realities of a dynamic world.

Composers, arrangers, poets, singers, and instrumental musicians have all contributed to this concert program. Each has their own story to tell and several tell those stories through this musical experience. In some cases, we barely know their story from centuries ago. In others, we’ve heard the story directly from the source. The message, however, must not be lost that the stories continue to be written. Commissioning new and arranged works add to the impact that Cor Flammae has on celebrating people and story through music.

For those who seek refuge in either sanctuary or city, the Bernstein MASS will be relatable. The text and music are reminiscent of Candide and West Side Story while wrapped in traditional text and innovative composition. It is music that is as much meant for the stage as it is for the church or the street. The MASS is emblematic of the whole program: a struggle that simply seeks resolve, not harm or pain. Out of chaotic moments, these queer composers offer a solution for simplicity, clarity, peace.

Here, you will hear beautiful music. Let it be a refuge for you and a time to think about our place in the world.

Mark Reid is Arts Education Coordinator at the British Columbia Ministry of Education. He is the former Director of Bands & Choirs at Vancouver Technical Secondary School, 2013 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year, and a Finalist for the 2015 Global Teacher Prize. He has lectured at the University of British Columbia and Brandon University, and is a composer published by Tempo Press and Grand Mesa Music.

Cor Flammae acknowledges that tonight’s concert takes place on unceded Coast Salish territories, including those of the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh-ulh, Stó:lo & Tsleil-Waututh nations.

REFUGE: Sanctuary / City Ubi Caritas (2011) David Conte (1955) David Conte is an American composer of operas, choral music, solo voice, orchestra, and solo instrument.

Frequently commissioned, he has written works for Chanticleer, The San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. As a Fullbright Fellowship recipient, he lived and worked with iconic composer Aaron Copland and studied with Nadia Boulanger. He is Chair of the Composition Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His operas deal with interpersonal and political themes, including his exploration of the LGBT social justice movement in his opera, Stonewall.

The text of “Ubi Caritas” is from of Christian hymn, traditionally sung to commemorate the ritual washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday in remembrance of the Last Supper. In the Western Christian tradition, feet washing is a symbol of humility, but the pre-Christian practice it commemorates was a common act of hospitality for someone welcoming guests into their home. Conte’s lush harmonies invite us to join together in charity, love and welcome.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur.

Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.

Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Amen.

Churchyard Entertainment (1988) Solo: Heather Molloy

Where charity and love are found, God is present there.

We are gathered as one by Christ’s love; let us exult and be joyful in Him. Let us fear and let us love the living God, and let us love each other with a sincere heart.

Where charity and love are found, God is present there. Amen.

Meredith Monk (1942) arr. Missy Clarkson

Moving away from the Christian tradition to a critique of its polarized history, Meredith Monk’s short film Book Of Days, from which “Churchyard Entertainment” is an excerpt, explores a pantomime medieval world rife with the problems of xenophobia and scapegoating that plagued the middle ages: “Book of Days” opens, in colour, with 20th-century workmen blasting a brick wall, leaving a hole that opens into a black-and-white small town in the Middle Ages. Men, women and children glide about their daily tasks, stopping to answer sometimes tellingly anachronistic questions from 20th-century interviewers...

The medieval Christians are dressed in white; the Jews are in black robes, each marked with a yellow circle.

Both are stricken by the plague, for which the Jews are blamed. A Jewish girl has visionary dreams that prompt her to draw crude objects identifiable as a car, an airplane, a gun. At the end of ‘’Book of Days’’ the workmen enter the town and come across the drawings traced into a wall.

Meredith Monk is an innovative American composer, famous for her interdisciplinary work and development of vocal technique. Her genre-stretching works “thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound, discovering and weaving together new modes of perception... creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which there are no words.” Monk was recently recognized in 2015 when President Obama presented her with the National Medal of Arts.

Quanti mercenarii (1538)

Dominique Phinot (1510-1556)

Dominique Phinot was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance whose work anticipated the development of the Venetian polychoral style. Beyond his working in Italy and southern France, his impressive body of work, and professional acclaim he achieved, we know little about Phinot’s life other that he was executed for “homosexual practices” in Lyon in 1556. Despite being cut short in his prime, Phinot’s musical legacy cannot be denied, as according to Renaissance writer Pietro Cerone, “had there been no Phinot, ...

Palestrina’s music would not have been possible.”

The motet Quanti mercenarii is a setting of text from the Bible’s story of the Prodigal Son. A story of shame and unearned forgiveness, Quanti mercenarii has historically been set as a motet much more often than liturgically necessary for worship. Phinot’s setting contains a secret modulation that, when interpreted using Renaissance chromatic technique, underscores the description of the Prodigal Son’s starvation, moving the tonality from one key to another by cycling through a circle of fifths.

Quanti mercenarii in domo Patris mei abundant panibus, ego autem hic fame pereo, Surgam, et ibo ad Patrem meum et dicam ei: fac me sicut unum ex mercenariis tuis.

Darest thou now, O Soul (2016) Premiere performance

How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!

I will arise and go to my father and say to him: ‘Make me like one of your hired men.’

Shane Raman (1978) Poem by Walt Whitman

Shane Raman is a Vancouver-based composer, baritone and instructor who has performed in many of the city’s ensembles, notably musica intima, Vancouver Cantata Singers, and Cor Flammae. He also teaches voice at the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, and directs the Anvil Community Choir. Raman explains his composition, Darest thou now, O Soul: “Darest thou now, O Soul” is a poem that I hear as an invitation to walk, to explore, to seek adventure, to escape, and to imagine what could be. Throughout the setting of this poem, you will hear a consistent ostinato that represents a heartbeat or footsteps, coloured by the bass entries which colour the harmony of the ostinato in unexpected ways. This reminds me of our journey through life where tragedies and celebrations continually bombard us as we walk our path. The piece includes changes of texture and chords which reflect the injections of text in the poem. The text “Walk out with me towards the Unknown Region,” becomes a chorus which invites all of us to explore people, places, and experiences that are unfamiliar to us, and to seek understanding of the unknown.

Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region, Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow?

No map, there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not, O Soul; Nor dost thou—all is a blank before us; All waits, undream’d of, in that region—that inaccessible land.

Till, when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds, bound us.

Then we burst forth—we float, In Time and Space, O Soul—prepared for them; Equal, equipt at last—(O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O Soul.

Ave Regina Caelorum (1684)

Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704)

Solos: Ann Chen, Missy Clarkson

Born in the city of Novara, Italy in 1620, Isabella Leonarda was a prolific composer of sacred motets, songs, masses and magnificats, as well as instrumental sonatas da chiesa, publishing 20 volumes of music. An Ursaline nun since the age of 16, Leonarda was part of a continuum of religious female composers, as convents not only provided an alternative to married life (in which women’s musical aspirations were often relegated to entertainments) but also created a sanctuary for female music making, as song was an important part of Christian worship, even in a homosocial context. Traditionally, only music for voice was written in convents — Leonarda was unique in her composition of instrumental music, publishing pieces for male and female voices meant to be performed outside the convent walls.

Scholars have mentioned Leonarda among medieval and renaissance female composers suspected of describing same-sex desire in their music (such as Hildegard von Bingen, Madalena Casulana, and Francesca Caccini) due to the strong fixation on the Virgin Mary, with many song texts framing this devotion to Mary in erotic language. Coded messages of love or infatuation were written by nuns as subtext in music otherwise disguised as Marian worship. Leonarda’s adoration of Mary likely inspired her own texts written about the Virgin, and she would always double dedicate her works to both a living patron and to the Virgin Mary.

Ave Regina Caelorum hails Mary as the “Queen of Heaven” and extolls her beauty. While likely written to be performed during a Mass, the piece was also influenced by the popular dance music of the time, providing a sense of exuberance and joy.

Ave, Regina Caelorum, Ave, Domina Angelorum: Salve, radix, salve, porta Ex qua mundo lux est orta: Gaude, Virgo gloriosa, Super omnes speciosa; Vale, o valde decora, Et pro nobis Christum exora.

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis (1916)

Hail, O Queen of Heaven enthroned.

Hail, by angels mistress owned.

Root of Jesse, Gate of Morn Whence the world’s true light was born: Glorious Virgin, Joy to thee, Loveliest whom in heaven they see; Fairest thou, where all are fair, Plead with Christ our souls to spare. .

Solos: Heather Molloy, Eric Biskupski, Hilary Ison, Peter Alexander

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

One of the best known figures in impressionist music, Ravel was a prolific turn of the century composer, and both an influential and odd figure. Born in 1875 in the Basque region of France, he doted on his strange mother, while his father was an inventor best known for creating failed circus attraction, “The Whirlwind of Death.”

Immersed in the artistic world of Paris, his contemporaries and friends included Stravinsky, Inghelbrecht, the young Satie, and Debussy. Influenced by the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Ravel utilized the writer’s compositional strategies and cultivated a dandy persona. While his queerness has been contested, friends say he had a secret collection of gay pornography and was reputed to have been involved with pianist and school friend Ricardo Viñes (teacher to Francis Poulenc), as well as with composer Manuel de Falla.

The events of his time left their imprints on his music. Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis was composed between 1914 and 1915, while Ravel was waiting to join the French forces in WWI. It is written in the style of a Renaissance chanson, revealing a patriotic interest in traditional French forms. It is one of his few choral

works, and notably, the text is his own. He dedicated the work to mathematician, pilot and future French Prime Minister, Paul Painlevé, who had already left to fight, and the music summons the bittersweetness of fleeting beauty, and of farewells.

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis, (Mon ami z’il est à la guerre) Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis Ont passé par ici.

Le premier était plus bleu que ciel, (Mon ami z’il est à la guerre) Le second était couleur de neige, Le troisième rouge vermeil.

“Beaux oiselets du Paradis, (Mon ami z’il est à la guerre) Beaux oiselets du Paradis, Qu’apportez par ici?”

Three lovely birds from Paradise (My belov’d is to the fighting gone) Three lovely birds from Paradise Have flown along this way.

The first was bluer than Heaven’s blue (My belov’d is to the fighting gone) The second white as the fallen snow The third was wrapt in bright red glow.

“Ye lovely birds from Paradise (My belov’d is to the fighting gone) Ye lovely birds from Paradise What bring ye then this way?”

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A Little Golden Cloud (1887)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Poem by Mikhail Lermontov

Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky is one of the great artists of the Western classical music tradition, beloved by people all over the world for his stirringly beautiful music which blends Western and Eastern European musical styles.

Born into a working class family of six children, he was initially trained as a civil servant, until enrolling himself in the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music at age 21.

Deeply afraid of being discovered for his homosexuality, Tchaikovsky disastrously attempted to marry his student Antonina Milyukova, a facade which lasted for two weeks before the composer suffered a nervous breakdown and tried to commit suicide. He had male lovers throughout his life and was infatuated with his nephew, Vladimir Lvovich Davïdov (nicknamed “Bob”). Surviving letters between the two men provide us with a window into the composer’s life and love. He dedicated his final symphony, Pathétique (the original Russian meaning “passionate”), to Bob - a work he premiered nine days before he died. In the weeks after the composer’s mysterious death, audiences of Pathétique listened to the work for portents of his possible suicide. While official histories name cholera as the cause, oral reports indicate that Tchaikovsky may have been intimidated into poisoning himself by either the Tsar or his fearful former colleagues. The Tsar paid for a state funeral, to which sixty thousand people applied to attend.

In 2013, despite the well-documented historical evidence of his homosexuality, the Russian culture minister denied that Russia’s beloved composer was gay, saying there was no proof, and a government-funded documentary avoided the topic. Although Tchaikovsky was an artistic treasure of Russia, he lived his life under threat from the state, and over 100 years later the government is still actively complicit in his erasure.

A Little Golden Cloud uses the natural world as a metaphor for the human emotions of loneliness, unrequited love and the desire for companionship. Its shimmering beauty is a testament to the connection that one isolated man can connect with millions through music.

Ночевала тучка золотая На груди утеса-великана; Утром в путь она умчалась рано, По лазури весело играя; Но остался влажный след в морщине Старого утеса. Одиноко Он стоит, задумался глубоко, И тихонько плачет он в пустыне.

A little golden cloud slumbered all night upon the breast of a giant crag; in the early morning it went wandering again, through the vault of the azure sky.

But a trace of dew remained in a wrinkle of the old crag.

Lonely he stands, pondering deeply, and silently weeps, forsaken in the wilderness.

What’s Next?

Cor Flammae is pleased to be guest mentors for Access to Music Foundation’s QSONG Artist Residency Program for queer and allied youth! An octet of our singers will workshop and perform new choral works by talented young participants this August.

QSONG Concert Aug 31 - Pyatt Hall, Vancouver www.accesstomusic.ca

what happens now? (2016)

Cor Flammae commission and premiere performance

Michael Park (1983)

Solos: Caitlin Robinson, Michael Park, Javier Rodriguez-Martin

Text by Ray Hsu

Michael Park is a Vancouver composer and pianist with a keen interest in speech, humour, and collaboration.

Heralded for his innovative projects, he presented the acclaimed Ted Talk “Experiencing Disease Through Music,” and in 2013 composed the award-winning opera, Diagnosis Diabetes. He is a founder and co-director of Art Song Lab, an innovative program that teams composers with poets.

In this new commission by Cor Flammae and world premiere, we explore institutionalized racism through the eyes of an immigrant to Canada and the alienating and unecessary suspicion they encounter. i think you’re lying to me, you just want to stay here you’re not expecting to be treated that way they’re always feeling as if you’re going to do the worst thing possible or be a criminal what happens now? they could just as easily take it away I would just have to leave maybe he’d like it back in Mexico it’s warmer there

what happens now? they could just as easily take it away I would just have to leave maybe he’d like it back in Mexico it’s warmer there i want to see if i can try it on my own i wasn’t able to i didn’t want to be helped out i wanted to prove to myself i could do something

i think you’re lying to me, you just want to stay here

i think you’re lying to me, you just want to stay here

that moment when you realize that it’s a giant bummer because you realize there’s nothing you can do

i would love it if you stayed here and we built something

when i first got here i was super excited this is how things are supposed to go

what happens to what we built now? they could just as easily take it away I would just have to leave maybe he’d like it back in Mexico it’s warmer there

that was a huge bummer because that’s what i came here for it took me a year—over a year— to find a job

that’s what i wanted: something to look forward to

i was lucky enough to be hired

INTERMISSION

Advance Democracy (1939)

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Text by Randall Swingler

Benjamin Britten was one of England’s foremost 20th century composers, credited with fostering the rebirth of British opera and promoting a culture of musical engagement beyond the circles of the musical elite. His relationship with his life-partner, tenor Peter Pears, was widely known but never discussed, and was one of the motivating influences in his music. Britten wrote his operas for Pears to sing and Pears supported Britten’s endeavours; both rose to fame in creative collaboration.

Britten’s parents, notably his mother, supported the prodigious young Britten in his early studies, but their care and parochial attitudes became smothering. When Britten got a job composing documentary scores for the General Post Office Film Unit, he met a cadre of older gay artists, among them collaborator W.H. Auden, who nurtured his early creative and political development: left wing, agnostic, queer, and pacifist.

Advance Democracy is a partsong with lyrics by Randall Swingler, editor of Left Review. The song was a response to the Munich Crisis of that year, when the Allies failed to appease Germany by allowing the annex of the Sudetenland. Britten also composed music for the 1938 film of the same title, promoting the co-operative movement and trade unionism. Fear of the growing threat of fascism fills the images of the text, and Britten illustrates this sense of uncertainty through the use of a snaking melodic line that passes from each section and back again.

Across the darkened city the frosty searchlights creep, Alert for the first marauder, to steal upon our sleep.

We see the sudden headlines float on the muttering tide.

We hear them warn and threaten and wonder what they hide.

There are whispers across tables, talks in a shutter’d room.

The price on which they bargain will be a people’s doom.

There’s a roar of war in the factories and idle hands on the street And Europe held in nightmare by the thud of marching feet.

Now sinks the sun of surety, the shadows growing tall Of the big bosses plotting their biggest coup of all.

Is there no strength to save us? No power we can trust.

Before our lives and liberties are powder’d into dust.

Time to arise Democracy, time to rise up and cry, That what our fathers fought for we’ll not allow to die.

Time to resolve divisions, time to renew our pride, Time to decide, time to burst our house of glass.

Rise as a single being in one resolve arrayed: Life shall be for the people that’s by the people made.

song about forgetfulness (2015)

Rodney Sharman (1958) Text by Bill Richardson

Vancouver-based composer and educator Rodney Sharman has been Composer-in-Residence with the Victoria Symphony, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In addition to concert music, Sharman writes music for cabaret, opera and dance. He works regularly with choreographer James Kudelka, for whom he has written scores for Oregon Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet and Coleman Lemieux & Co (Toronto). Sharman has received awards for his compositions in Canada and Germany. He was a 2014 Djerassi Artist-in-Residence, Woodside, California. He is currently the Composer-in-Residence for Early Music Vancouver’s New Music for Old Instruments project.

Sharman describes song about forgetfulness: The music reflects childhood and remembrance though musical “games”: canons and double canons (rounds), invertible counterpoint (register exchange of identical music), and inversions (turning an ongoing melody upside down) and memory games: repetition, extension and variation. Bill Richardson’s text asks us to think about forgetting as well remembering. Let us recall that Freud said that what we forget is much more interesting than what we remember.

What, my friend, will I remember, when I’m old then older yet?

What, my friend, will I remember? What, my friend, will I forget?

A rained out birthday picnic, my first straight-A report card, the fate of Harry Potter?

Will I remember being young? Remember how I look? Remember how we look right now?

What, my friend, will you remember? Oh my friend, oh my dear.

What, my friend, will you remember? When you’re old and full of years.

Will you remember here and now? Recall how once we’d sung this song?

This song about forgetfulness, when we were still so young?

Will you remember standing tall?

Will you remember me, my friend? Will I remember you?

The time that lies ahead of us is greater than the time that’s gone.

Let’s meet again and sing this song when the opposite is true.

Whatever else we may forget, remember now: Sing with no regrets.

From this hour, Freedom! (2000)

Stephen Smith (1966) Poem by Walt Whitman

Stephen Smith grew up in rural Nova Scotia, where he sang and played the piano from an early age. After initial studies in his home province in both piano and organ, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. Since 1990, Stephen has lived in Vancouver, obtaining his doctoral degree in piano performance from the University of British Columbia and contributing to the musical life of the city as a performer, teacher, composer, choral conductor, and adjudicator. His choral arrangements and compositions have been performed and recorded by choirs from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Seoul, South Korea.

According to the composer, From this hour, Freedom! is “a short, dignified statement about choosing one’s own way in life.” The text is drawn from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road,” from the bisexual poet’s famously controversial book Leaves of Grass. Smith’s use of the text in this piece was inspired by the movie “Billy Elliot.”

From this hour, Freedom From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, listening to others, and considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

It Takes a Village (2000)

Solos: Hillary Ison, Lau Mehes, Megan Dray, Aaron Purdie, Beth Busby, edzi’u, Shane Raman Special thanks to our clinician, Dawn Pemberton

Joan Szymko (1957)

Igbo and Yoruba (Nigeria) Proverb

Joan Szymko is a popular American composer whose choral works are widely performed. Her works are particularly concerned with an embodied approach to sound, a dedication to storytelling and a focus on text.

She is in her 20th season as the Artistic Director of Aurora Chorus (Portland, Oregon). She recently joined the Music School faculty at Portland State University as director of Vox Femina women’s chorus. Szymko has also been a resident composer with Do Jump! Movement Theater since 1995. It Takes a Village is one of her most performed works: In adapting the west African saying,”it takes a village to raise a child,” I sought to embody the cultural concept behind this proverb—that it is truly all the individual parts linked and working together that create and support the whole. The four vocal rhythms in the main portion of the work, each with its own character and function, are essential to creating the unique energy and movement of “Village.” Only when they are sung together does a truly joyful spirit arrive.

The proverb is from the Igbo and Yoruba cultures of Nigeria, and refers not only to the multiple influences children recieve, but also more generally the importance of concern for others, sharing, and hospitality; that it is our collective responsibility to mold the culture we live in.

It takes a whole village to raise our children It takes a whole village to raise one child We all everyone must share the burden We all everyone will share the joy

Selection from MASS (1971)

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Text from the Liturgy of the Roman Mass, additional texts by Stephen Schwartz & Leonard Bernstein

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” - Leonard Bernstein

One of the icons who helped define the sound of 20th century music, Leonard Bernstien was a Jewish American composer famous for works ranging from classical to musical theatre and jazz (West Side Story being one of his most popular contributions). After studying at the Tanglewood Institute, he became the Music Director of the New York City Symphony, and then of the New York Philharmonic, guest-conducting ensembles around the world and using his musical talents to promote peace and engage youth.

After a string of affairs with men, including another American musical giant, composer Aaron Copeland, Bernstein married Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn. He was devoted to her, and she was supportive of his attraction to men, accepting his homosexual affairs as something that would allow the emotional bond of their marriage and family life to flourish. Despite years of relative happiness in his marriage, he left Felicia in 1976 to live with his boyfriend of five years, Tom Cothran, only to move back one year later to care for her after she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She died in 1978, and he created the Felicia Montealegre Fund to raise money for Amnesty International in her memory. Bernstein and Cothran remained friends until Cothran’s death from AIDS complications in 1981.

The same year he met Cothran, he primiered MASS, a piece commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening of the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Fascinated by the drama and theatricality of Catholic ritual, Bernstein created a work that explores a crisis and reaffirmation of faith that rejects conventional institutions in favour of a sincere, personal path. Originally written as a dramatic theatrical work involving costume and dance, the piece blends classical music with rock and musical theatre, creating moments of cacophonous conflict and cynicsm, resolving into sonorous simplicity, reflecting Bernstein’s quest to explore the conditions for peace.

Devotions Before Mass Antiphon: Kyrie Eleison Solos: Heather Molloy, Shane Raman, Aaron Purdie Kyrie eleison Christe eleison

Lord, have mercy Christ, have mercy

Hymn and Psalm: “A Simple Song” Solo: Bruce Hoffman Sing God a simple song: Lauda, Laudē Make it up as you go along: Lauda, Laudē Sing like you like to sing.

God loves all simple things, For God is the simplest of all, For God is the simplest of all.

I will sing the Lord a new song To praise Him, to bless Him, to bless the Lord.

I will sing His praises while I live All of my days.

Blessed is the man who loves the Lord, Blessed is the man who praises Him. Lauda, Lauda, Laudē And walks in His ways.

I will lift up my eyes To the hills from whence comes my help.

I will lift up my voice to the Lord Singing Lauda, Laudē.

For the Lord is my shade, Is the shade upon my right hand, And the sun shall not smite me by day Nor the moon by night.

Blessed is the man who loves the Lord, Lauda, Lauda, Laudē, And walks in His ways.

Lauda, Lauda, Laudē, Lauda, Lauda di da di day.

All of my days.

Responsory: Alleluia

Gloria Gloria Tibi Solo: Bruce Hoffman Gloria tibi, gloria.

Gloria patre, gloria filio, et spiritu e sancto.

Glory to thee, glory.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

Laudamus te. Adoramus te.

Glorificamus te. Benedicimus te!

Gloria patre! Gloria filio.

Et spiritu e sancto.

We praise Thee. We worship Thee.

We glorify Thee. We bless Thee!

Glory be to the Father! And to the Son. And to the Holy Ghost.

Gloria in Excelsis Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax to men of good will. hominibus bonae voluntatis.

We praise Thee, we bless Thee, Laudamus te, Adoramus te, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, Benedicimus te, Glorificamus te, We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory, Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam: O Lord God, heavenly King, Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, God the Father almighty.

Deus Pater omnipotens.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son. Domine Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe.

Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris Who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Who take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.

Suscipe deprecationem nostram.

Who sit at the right hand of the Father, Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, have mercy on us. misererere nobis.

For Thou alone art holy; Quoniam tu solus Sanctus; Thou alone art Lord; Tu solus Dominus; Thou alone, O Jesus Christ, Tu solus Altissimus, Jesu Christe, together with the Holy Ghost, Cum Sancto Spiritu, art most high in the Glory of God the Father. in gloria Dei Patris.

Amen.

Amen.

Trope: “Half of the People” (quatrain by Paul Simon) Half of the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.

Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction.

They call it glorious living.

And, baby, where does that leave you, You and your kind? (...miserere nobis, suscipe deprecationem nostram.)

You and your youth and your mind?

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.

Half of the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.

The Lord’s Prayer Our Father Solo: Peter Alexander Our Father, Who art in heaven Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Pax: Communion Chorale: Almighty Father Almighty Father, incline thine ear: Bless us and all those who have gathered here.

Thine angel send us who shall defend us all And fill with grace all who dwell in this place.

Amen.

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Erick Lichte

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February 17, 2017 | 8pm | the annex, VancouVer

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SAT NOV 5, 2016 AT 7:30PM

RYERSON UNITED CHURCH

Chichester Psalms

Bernstein, Before & Beyond

Paula Kremer, Artistic Director

SAT DEC 17, 2016 AT 2 PM

Paula Kremer, Artistic Director

Paula Kremer, Artistic Director

SAT FEB 25, 2017 AT 7:30 PM

HOLY ROSARY CATHEDRAL

HOLY ROSARY CATHEDRAL

Christmas Reprise XIV

De Profundis Palestrina to Pizzetti

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