Recording Reviews

Morgan Luttig, editor

Home In Me

Mirabai

Sandra Snow artistic director

(2023, 53’08”)

When introducing the release of the new album, director Sandra Snow asks the question in Marie Kondo fashion: “Does it spark joy?” Even when introducing challenging topics, joy is what this album, home in me radiates. At the first listening, immediate attention is drawn to the beautiful, polished choral sound of mirabai, but subsequent hearings highlight the nuances created in tone for the varied selections. This album brings to the forefront many wonderful living composers and women poets’ voices, as well as revisiting music written for treble voices in the Baroque era. While evoking sounds of blues through the minor pentatonic scale, the refreshing spark and triumph is palpable in Andrea Ramsey’s They May Tell You, setting a text written by Isabella Cook when she was only 17 years old. The poem, inspired by the members of Isabella’s treble choir in high school, celebrates being a woman, and the challenges and doubts faced by women. In her poem she says: “they may ask you, who do you think you are? And you may tell them, I am a woman, I keep company of others like me, women of forest, women of fire, women of sunshine, women of sea, and we lay claim to everything from coral reef to redwood tree.” This is what this album celebrates, finding “home” in whatever it may mean for women’s voices, our differences and shared experiences, and our unique paths and challenges. home in me uplifts and intrigues the listener through a collection of eloquently sung choral pieces performed with luscious warm tone, precision, and expertise.

Mirabai is a professional women’s ensemble who aims “to enhance the artistic expectations of women’s choral singing by connecting powerful music of women, past and present; and performing, commissioning, and recording new and innovative musics that express the rich and emotional terrain of a woman’s life.”1 The ensemble has three main goals: enhance expectations of women’s choral singing, engage in collaboration with women who are leaders in choral education, and connect to the powerful music of women from all eras, including performing and commissioning new works. They also strive to mold future generations through a young scholars program, which offers mentoring to high-school aged students. Eight students are offered the opportunity to work one-on-one with current teachers and together they explore the choral world as a possible career path.

Pieces on this album represent a variety of compositional voices largely from North America. All poets are women, except in the opening track which is a new edition of J.S. Bach’s Suscepit Israel from his Magnificat BWV 243. This new edition was originally created for mirabai by Liza Calisesi Maidens for their performance at Southwest ACDA in 2020, scored for SSA choir, oboe, and realized continuo. In the inaugural performance of this edition an oboe part was replaced by soprano saxophone, which is a great option for schools with strong jazz programs.

Other pieces on the album may prove accessible to high school and collegiate treble ensembles, including Melissa Dunphy’s Wild Embers has a powerful text written by Nikita Gill, and explores sophisticated body percussion. Ensembles will love this piece with its thriving rhythmic pulse and hissing of the dying fire. Although unaccompanied, the use of beautifully crafted vocal pairings and call and response will allow choirs of varied experience to enjoy the piece.

Winter Stars by Jake Runestad opens with a twinkling star motif in the piano, providing a sense of hope through its consistency of the constellations. As stated on his website, “Orion returns in the winter sky, reminding us that even when there is war and violence and sadness in our lives, we can find hope and constancy in the cosmos.”2 Dominick DiOrio’s Broken is set to the text of Megan Levad’s poem “When a Compass is Broken.” The piece’s cluster chords and exposed passages where the piano is not playing make this piece a challenge. Rather than doubling any of the vocal parts, the piano creates its own cyclic pattern and the choir works as a layering texture, alternating between rhythmic poetic passages and luscious chords where mirabai’s impeccable blend and artistry is clearly displayed.

The title of the album home in me comes from a poem by Dr. Sienna Craig. This three-movement work for treble chorus, piano, and percussion was commissioned for a Carnegie Hall premier with the theme “what is home.” On this album we hear movement number 1, Body. Singers are invited to sing and play rocks they have gathered. The long legato lines of the choral parts respond to the percussion instruments, including the piano, creating an interesting rhythmic landscape. The middle opens into a short a cappella section, bringing back the opening theme, and developing into a section showcasing the piano writing of Andrea Clearfield.

At the golden mean of this album is Caroline Shaw’s It’s Motion Keeps . Caroline Shaw is a Pulitzer and Grammy-winning composer and a member of vocal band Roomful of Teeth, who has explored new sound worlds both in the classical genre as well as in popular music. This piece, originally written for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, was premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2013. It calls for treble chorus and solo viola or cello. On this track mirabai shows its impeccable technical skill and musicianship. From difficult rhythms to exposed harmonies and individual vocal lines, the singers are challenged by mastering their individual parts while listening and responding to the ensemble around them. The final climax is built around three main points: the choral parts are divided into chorus in a chordal callresponse fashion, the timbre build through “oo’s” and “aa’s” exploring and challenging the listening with unexpected repetitive consonant fireworks and finally the end tapers off to a homorhythmic statement of the title line from the poem.

Joan Szymko’s Stars In Your Bones was composed as a gift to the Aurora Chorus to celebrate the ensemble as “A Place Where You Belong”, the theme of its 25th Anniversary Season. The text for this piece is provided by Alla Bozarth who is a Russian, Celtic, Osage, American poet, and Episcopal priest. The idea of a “big bang” is suggested in the opening lively chords of the piano. The overall rhythmic complexity of Szymko’s writing and the vocal splits makes the piece challenging to sing. Mirabai’ s technical expertise is on full display as they navigate through changing meters and wide ranges with ease and grace.

At the end of the album mirabai embraces the listener with Sarah Quartel’s delicate All Shall Be Well. The text is inspired by Julian of Norwich and the composer herself, inspired by reflections written by the commissioning choir. Known later by the name of Juliana of Norwich (1342c. 1416), the poet lived most of her life as an anchoress at St. Julian’s Church in Norwich. She is known through her book The Revelations of Divine Love, which is known to be the first book written in English language by a woman. The vocal parts create a luscious harmony with the piano and violin ensemble. Returning to the idea of joy, from the words of Juliana of Norwich to young Isabella Cook in the 21st century, mirabai takes us on a journey in search of home in its many meanings, varying timbres, and poetry exploring different aspects of our experiences in life. With the final track mirabai wraps the listener into a warm embrace that lasts long after the song has ended, and with comfort that all truly shall be well, and we all may shine at our brightest.

Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College

What is Ours: Music for an America in Progress

Dominick DiOrio, director NV6484 (2022, 52’00”)

Many facets of life in America were challenged, investigated or recontextualized in the years surrounding the pandemic. What is Ours: Music for an America in Progress is a product of this environment born from change; originally conceptualized as an extension of NOTUS’ performance for the cancelled 2020 World Symposium on Choral Music, this initially-delayed-then-released album is framed and shaped by the themes inherent in life in pandemic-era America.

Dominick DiOrio’s repertoire selections for this album both explicitly and implicitly reference the issues brought to bear in the early 2020s. Andrea Ramsey’s Stomp on the Fire and Carlos Cordero’s ¡Ayúdame! speak to the injustices present in modern society. The two works are deftly woven together to create a narrative wending from the despair inherent in Cordero’s work (whose text involves repeated cries for mercy including “Mírame, escúchame, estoy enfermo, Ayúdame,” which translates to “Look at me, listen to me, I am sick, help me!”) to Ramsey’s work which is “meant to represent the beautiful diversity of humanity and the strength present when that diversity comes together in unity.”1

One particularly meaningful work on the album is Moira Smiley’s Wire You Here, a work that encapsulates the frustration and sense of disconnectedness many musicians experienced living and working remotely in the height of the pandemic. The vocal ostinatos on the text “wire you here” underscore the simultaneous spokenword performances by ensemble members who intone their experiences of attending remote classes, looking at screens, and feeling anxiety about an increasingly uncertain future. These layers build until two soloists, a tenor and soprano, sing “I’m reaching across. I’m reaching to you now. What carries me across the abyss of us.” The work ends with the spoken statement “I just can’t wait for the day that I can be connected with my fellow artists again.”

One of NOTUS’ particular strengths lies in the representation of commissioned works on the album. John William Griffiths II’s First Light, Leigha Amick’s Night Sky, and DiOrio’s own It Takes Your Breath Away and A Chain is Broken were all commissioned for performances by NOTUS, and each performance is outstanding. Of particular note is Roger Roe’s phenomenal English horn playing on It Takes Your Breath Away, which is set to a spoken-word reading of the titular poem by Margie McCreless Roe.

DiOrio’s version of an America in progress is that of a multicultural nation representing people of diverse backgrounds. In addition to the aforementioned Venezuelan American composer Carlos Cordero, the works of Indian American composer Reena Esmail and African American composer Joel Thompson are represented in Tuttarana and America Will Be!, respectively. Both works are well-performed by NOTUS, and America Will Be! in particular features some fantastic solo work.

NOTUS and DiOrio handle each of these works exceptionally well, taking particular care to exemplify each of the contrasting styles featured in these diverse offerings. I found myself constantly enraptured by the artistry displayed by the musicians in the ensemble, whose brilliant performances accentuate the meaningful narratives constructed in this wonderful set of repertoire. I heartily recommend this touching, thoughtprovoking, and well-executed album.

—Corey Sullivan Florida State University