20240423_Levana

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents

Levana

Annika Stucky, Conductor

Ruth Springer, Associate Conductor

Elizabeth LaJeunesse, Piano with special guests

Florida State University Schools Treble Choir

Danelle Eckhart, Conductor

Adam Ravain, Piano

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

7:30 p.m. | Opperman Music Hall

Silver Rain

Where the Light Begins

Florida State University Schools

Treble Choir

B.E. Boykin (b. 1989)

Terice Allen, cello

Susan LaBarr (b. 1981)

Levana

Ad Amore

Lee R. Kesselman

Shiloh DeFabia, bells

Ubi Caritas Traditional

Invitation to Love

Silence

Marques

L. A. Garrett (b. 1984)

Grace Carter, George Flint, Henry Flint arr. Julia Rinehart (b. 2002)

Makayla Sawyer and Keeley Sawyer, soloists

Shiloh DeFabia, cajon

Julia Rinehart, conductor

When the Earth Stands Still

I’ll Go Alone

Don Macdonald (b. 1966)

Elizabeth Alexander (b. 1962)

Dylan Valdes, Ariel Rodriguez, Reese Cooper, Zoë Ashberg, Athalia Eugene

Julie A. Cruz, Amanda Lopez, Mariah Moran, Erica Dowling, Hayley Elmore

Zoe Rue, Jackie Myers, Grace Leali, Ally Kelso, and Lillian Katz, soloists

Song of Ruth

Walk Together Children

Tuttarana

Crowded Table

David Childs (b. 1969)

Traditional Spiritual arr. by Moses Hogan

Reena Esmail (b. 1983)

Isabella Pinilla, soloist

Andrea Ramsey (b. 1977)

Madelyne Garnot, violin

Ubi Caritas Traditional

We Are Held

Susan LaBarr (b. 1981) Combined Choirs

To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All…

Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.

Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.

Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Tonight’s program is inspired by the following image:

This program has come to fruition through the intentional and meaningful collaboration of numerous and marvelous company, combining the efforts of teachers, students, and artists. It features the collaboration and creative achievements of Levana conductor, Annika Stucky; Ruth Springer, an incredible educator, conductor, and friend; Elizabeth LaJeunesse, a phenomenal musician and genuine, selfless, and thoughtful spirit; Danelle Eckhart and the Florida State University Schools and their excellent performance; FSU student Julia Rinehart and her profound arrangement for Levana; Adam Ravain, Terice Allen, Shiloh DeFabia, and Maddy Garnot and their wonderful instrumental gifts; many fabulous soloists and their souls to bare; and talented visual artists who have shared what this program means to them. In the spirit of company and collaboration, we have worked to include as many voices as possible in tonight’s experience.

Our concert begins with the fiery fanfare Ad Amore fiercely declaring love. The music’s vast range mirrors the hills and valleys of life while relentless energy and dynamics remind us that despite these highs and lows, goodness is still infinite, ineffable, and abounds in the light. Ubi Caritas, an ancient chant, continues a theme of not just love, but unity. We transition seamlessly into Invitation to Love, a stunning, lyric composition by FSU doctoral graduate Marques L. A. Garrett. The music first hauntingly bids love to come in the night, then blossoms into a welcoming invitation for the fullness of all times and seasons.

Silence was arranged by and is directed by current Levana member, Julia Rinehart. She writes about her arrangement:

“I originally heard this song in a TV episode of The Bold Type and was immediately drawn to the power of its message. It made me think about how empty and abandoned it makes me feel when others don’t speak up when we need them most. Women and men have normalized our silence. This is not an inherited trait but a learned one. Sometimes what we yearn to hear most are the words we have never heard. Staying silent causes so much pain. No matter how much you crave their love, their silence and their absence is their betrayal. I have felt a deep sense of clarity and disappointment as a result of people throughout the years not speaking their truth when that was all I was ever giving to them. Honesty and authenticity are the only way to repair broken communication. This song is our confession, our confrontation, and the moment we break free.”

Silence moves continuously into When the Earth Stands Still, beginning with a soft plea to listen. This hushed and profound work speaks of a desire for closeness and security with another person. Like Silence, this piece symbolizes an effort to repair relationships. Yet sometimes, staying in one place, even together, is not enough. Directly out of When the Earth Stands Still, soloists proclaim “I’ll go alone if I have to,” which becomes a determined refrain that speaks to the loneliness and challenge of a less traveled road. Elizabeth Alexander describers her piece I’ll Go Alone as “[a] powerful reflection on personal strength and resolve.”

Immediately after I’ll Go Alone, we transition to the sonorous Song of Ruth by David Childs. This piece is based on one of the greatest biblical love stories: the story of Ruth and Naomi. The young widow, Ruth, and her mother-in-law, Naomi, are destitute after the passing of Ruth’s husband. Even though Naomi believes it would be better for Ruth to return to her homeland, in a selfless display of love, Ruth refuses to leave her mother-in-law and instead commits to continuing to walk through life together. This full set of pieces is meant to signify women uplifting women and the repair of relationship through community. Song of Ruth is a portrait of one woman coming along side another in support and solidarity, not asking her to stay, not negating the strength and determination declared in I’ll Go Alone. Instead, she affirms the journey and walks beside her in fellowship saying, you don’t have to go alone – let me come with you.

This sentiment is reiterated in Walk Together Children, used in transition to gather forces for Tuttarana. Reena Esmail writes about her piece,

“The title of this piece is a conglomeration of two words: the Italian word ‘tutti’, means ‘all’ or ‘everyone,’ and the term ‘tarana’ designates a specific Hindustani (North Indian) musical form, whose closest Western counterpart is the ‘scat’ in jazz. Made up of rhythmic syllables, a tarana is the singer’s chance to display agility and dexterity. While a Hindustani tarana is a solo form, I wanted to bring the tarana into an ensemble setting. Three years after I wrote this piece, the #metoo movement, created by Tarana Burke, broke on social media. It occurred to me that the title of this piece, if read a different way, literally means ‘We are all Tarana.’ I couldn’t believe the incredible coincidence that this work, a powerful 3-minute tidal wave of sound, written for an all-female ensemble from the oldest women’s college in the country, bore this name. I’m so grateful for what this movement has done to move the discussion forward about the horrors we face as women, and how we can begin to change and heal our society.”

Our final numbers on the program feature some of today’s most celebrated female composers: Andrea Ramsey and Susan LaBarr. Ramsey writes a lively arrangement of the GRAMMY Award-winning song by The Highwomen, Crowded Table. One of the song’s writers says, “I think that the table and the fire being a metaphor for bringing people together that don’t all think the same thing. We don’t all believe the same things even in The Highwomen. But the fact that we can come to the table, that we can break bread and then we can go out into the world as activists and as women…but we come home to each other at the end of the day, that’s what families do. I think that’s a really beautiful sentiment everybody needs to hear right now.”

Again declaring unity through Ubi Caritas, our singers return to their original places in the concert hall, this time joined by treble singers of Florida State University Schools to sing We Are Held. The text of this compelling work affirms to all to hear it that we are not alone. It is incredibly intentional that we end our program in the same place that we began. After all, it is not the journey nor the destination that is important; rather, it is the company who surrounds us.

To view the artwork submitted by members of Levana that represents what tonight’s program has meant them, please use the following QR code:

Silver Rain

B.E. Boykin

In time of silver rain

The earth puts forth new life again, Green grasses grow

And flowers lift their heads,

And over all the plain

The wonder spreads Of Life, Of Life, Of life!

In time of silver rain

The butterflies lift silken wings

To catch a rainbow cry,

And trees put forth new leaves to sing

In joy beneath the sky

As down the roadway

Passing boys and girls

Go singing, too,

In time of silver rain

When spring

And life Are new.

– Langston Hughes

Where the Light Begins

Susan LaBarr

Perhaps it does not begin. Perhaps it is always.

Perhaps it takes a lifetime to open our eyes, to learn to see what has forever shimmered in front of us–the luminous line of the map in the dark the vigil flame in the house of the heart the love so searing we cannot keep from singing, from crying out in testimony and praise.

Perhaps this day will be the mountain over which the dawn breaks. Perhaps we will turn our face toward it, toward what has been always.

Perhaps our eyes will finally open in ancient recognition, willingly dazzled, illuminated at last.

Perhaps this day the light begins in us.

– Jan Richardson

Ad Amore

Lee R. Kesselman

Quello infinito e ineffabil bene che là sù è, così corre ad amore com’ a lucido corpo raggio vene. Bene! Amore!

– Dante Alighieri Purgatorio, Canta XV, lines 67-69

Ubi caritas

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

Invitation to Love

Marques L. A. Garrett

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or come when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

Come in the night or come in the day,

Come, O love, whene’er you may,

And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love, You are soft as the nesting dove.

Come to my heart and bring it to rest

As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief

Or when my heart is merry;

Come with the falling of the leaf

Or with the redd’ning cherry.

Come when the year’s first blossom blows, Come when the summer gleams and glows, Come with the winter’s drifting snows, And you are welcome, welcome.

– Paul Laurence Dunbar

That goodness infinite and ineffable Which is above there, runneth unto love, As to a lucid body comes the sunbeam. Goodness! Love!

– Translated by Longfellow

Where charity and love are, God is there. Christ’s love has gathered us into one.

Silence

Grace Carter, George Flint, Henry Flint

Say everything’s better in the daylight

So why’d you leave me in the dark?

If you’re gonna say something, say something

Don’t say nothing

And you believe in something ‘cause it sounds right

And when you told me what I wanna hear

Don’t just say nothing, say nothing

Just say something

Don’t blame me For the mess that you’ve been causing

I believed Every word you didn’t say

Now I see You’re only gonna break me down

If you wanna say something

Man up, don’t say nothing

Oh, I speak the truth

If you wanna say something

Silence don’t mean nothing

But it does to you

How did silence become a part of you?

I been dreaming of your silhouette all night

‘Cause I haven’t seen it all

No, I’m not on my knees Begging for you

For you to comfort me No, I don’t want that

Just needed your honesty But all I want now

Is for you to speak to me Like you never did

If you wanna say something

Silence don’t mean nothing

But it does to you

Now the silence is part of me and you.

When the Earth Stands Still

Don Macdonald

Come listen

In the silence of the moment before rain comes down

There’s a deep sigh

In the quiet of the forest and the tall tree’s crown

Now hold me

Will you take the time to hold me and embrace the chill?

Or miss me

Will you take the time to miss me when the Earth stands still?

‘Cause there’s no use running

‘Cause the storm’s still coming

And you’ve been running for so many years

For so many years.

Come listen

In the silence of the moment before shadows fall

Feel the tremor

Of your heartbeat matching heartbeat as we both dissolve

Now hold me

Will you take the time to hold me and embrace the chill?

Or miss me

Will you take the time to miss me when the Earth stands still?

‘Cause there’s no use running

‘Cause the storm’s still coming

And you’ve been running for so many years

So stay with me

Held in my arms, like branches of a tree

They’ll shelter you for many years

So many years

For so many years (stay with me)

Stay with me.

Elizabeth Alexander

I’ll go alone if I have to.

If you’re behind me when I begin this journey, stay there, for you will only hinder me –I’ll go alone if I have to.

My footprints will vanish from this trail someday, but the seeds that I sow will remain and grow.

The fragrance from the fruit that is borne will draw those who hunger and thirst, those who seek God in Spirit and Truth –I’ll go alone if I have to.

For at the end of this journey waits a festive table filled with blessings and prayers that I prayed and had forgotten. Have your fill of these blessings! Oh, I am tired from the journey, and Jesus bids me rest, and I will sit on the porch of the kingdom, and realize the destination was no more important than the journey. I’ll go alone if I have to. On this journey, I’ll go alone.

Song of Ruth

Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.

– Ruth 1: 16-17

Walk together, children

Walk together, children, don’t you get weary, there’s a great camp meeting in the promised land.

Tuttarana

Tutti, Together

Ubi caritas

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

Crowded Table

Andrea Ramsey

You can hold my hand When you need to let go

I can be your mountain When you’re feeling valley-low I can be your streetlight Showing you the way home

You can hold my hand When you need to let go

If we want a garden We’re gonna have to sow the seed

Plant a little happiness Let the roots run deep

If it’s love that we give Then it’s love that we reap

If we want a garden We’re gonna have to sow the seed

The door is always open Your picture’s on my wall

Everyone’s a little broken And everyone belongs

I want a house with a crowded table

And a place by the fire for everyone

Let us take on the world while we’re young and able

And bring us back together when the day is done.

Where charity and love are, God is there. Christ’s love has gathered us into one.

We Are Held

Susan LaBarr

As the sunset by the sky, And as all the birds that fly, By His arms, both you and I, We are held.

As the ship is by the sea, And the nest upon the tree, Ever cradled ever free, We are held.

As a tune rung clear and fair, And the silence trailing there, As this music by the air, We are held.

As our life is by its span, So we rest in God’s own hand, And are bold to sing again: We are held!

– Robert Bode

Soprano 1

Cherlyssa Alcineus

Amy Arredondo

Julie A. Cruz

Jazzy Ebert

Michelle Hanson

Paige Kinch

Amanda Lopez

Abby Marotta

Mariah Moran

Sophie Nagy

Charlotte Palmer

Julia Rinehart

Zoe Rue

Dylan Valdes

Brooke Walsh

Ainsley Cate

Tatianna Kirk

Kiara NeSmith

FSUS Treble Choir Personnel

Danelle Eckhart, Conductor

Treble Chorus

Chloe Northington

Colbie Rushing

Hannah Thomas

Concert Chorus Women

Isabel Chester

Taylor Cook

Genesis Cruzado

Ella Fleck

Analise Fonseca

Tori Fortune

Katy Hill

Haven Ottinger

Ava Reed

Levana Personnel

Annika Stucky, Conductor

Nahomi Torres

Ashley Ren

Gaviana Roberts

Hannah Sherer

Rachel White

Ruth Springer, Associate Conductor

Soprano 2

Victoria Angiulli

Zoë Ashberg

Olivia Bahmer

Riley Craft

Athalia Eugene

Jona Eun Meier

Bella Jordan

Ally Kelso

Casey Kerr

Taylor Livingston

Maggie Merrell

Grace Myatt

Isabella Pinilla

Ariel Rodriguez

Mariangely Rodriguez

Keeley Sawyer

Makayla Sawyer

Lissi Strom

Madison Zuel

Alto 1

Allyson Andaluz

Aubrey Barnes

Kiley Berkery

Reese Cooper

Sofia DeSanctis

Hayley Elmore

Theasamantha Figueras

Jillian Katz

Daisy Palmer

Veronica Parodi

Emma Robbins

Veronica Saavedra

A’kaysha Studstill

Daelynn Trotman

Rebecca Voigt

Ruth Springer

Alto 2

Lily Allen

Edmarly Ariol

Rocky Chrieki

Anabella Ellis

Erica Dowling

Abigail Hatfield

Katelyn Palmer

Grace Leali

Haley MacDonald

Isabella Martinez

Jackie Meyers

Monica Powell

Kaelyn Siller