We in C4 wish to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following organizations and individuals for their support and assistance: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP St Joseph’s Church Stephen Black Michael David Martin Geller and Carol Garner Annabel Gordon Clara Longstreth Benjamin Niemczyk Ellen Rentz Ira Rosenblatt
C4 We hope to see you at our next concert:
Water Music
Join C4 for an evening of stunning new music describing water in its many forms, featuring the US premiere of Välimeri (Mediterranean Sea), a gorgeous suite by the Finnish composer Olli Kortekangas; works by Jaako Mäntyjärvi and Henryk Górecki; compositions by New York-area composers Neil Farrell, Elliot Z. Levine and William McClelland; and world premieres of music by C4 members Timothy Brown, Jonathan David, Malina Rauschenfels and Karen Siegel.
c4ensemble.org Thursday, 26 February 2009, 8:00 p.m.
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Manhattanville (521 W. 126th Street)
Saturday, 28 February 2009, 8:00 p.m.
The Church of St. Luke in the Fields, Greenwich Village (487 Hudson Street)
Please also mark your calendar for our Spring Concert! Thursday, 4 June 2009, 8:00 p.m.
Church for All Nations, Midtown (417 W. 57th Street)
Saturday, 6 June 2009, 8:00 p.m.
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Manhattanville (521 W. 126th Street)
C4 CHAMBER CHORUS Sopranos Franny Geller Jamie Klenetsky Karen Siegel
Altos Erica Lowe Elizabeth Marker Naoko Masui Malina Rauschenfels Deborah Skydell
Tenors Christopher Baum Jonathan David Nate Graham David Rentz
Basses James Bilodeau Timothy Brown Phillip Cheah Jonathan Scott Christian Smythe
arrangements and his student soloists have consistently received high scores at the annual NYSSMA festival. Christian holds degrees a BS in Music from NYU and an MFA in Vocal Performance from Hunter College. He also enjoys trying to live a little greener every day.
C4 C4 C4 SYMPHONIC CHORUS
Sopranos Shinok Chung Franny Geller Tina Goldstein Jamie Klenetsky Adria LeBoeuf Karen Siegel
and Claudine Ansermet at the Fondazione Italiana di Musica Antica in Urbino, Italy. Her works have been commissioned by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble, Trio Eos, and the Matrix Music Collaborators, and performed by the new music ensemble Cygnus. Currently, Karen is a PhD candidate in composition at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she studies with Tania León. She is also Adjunct Lecturer in Music at City College.
Altos Sally Fenley Tatiana Kochkareva Erica Lowe Elizabeth Marker Naoko Masui Malina Rauschenfels Deborah Skydell
Tenors Christopher Baum Jonathan David Nate Graham Steve Lanser David Rentz
Basses Daniel Andor James Bilodeau Timothy Brown Phillip Cheah Ian Moss Jonathan Scott Christian Smythe
C4: THE CH0RAL COMPOSER/CONDUCTOR COLLECTIVE
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C4, the world’s first Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, is a unique vocal ensemble in New York City dedicated to performing music by living composers. A collaborative project of its singing members, it functions not only as a presenting ensemble in its own right, with a three-concert season, but also as an ongoing workshop and recital chorus for the emerging composers and conductors who form the core of the group. It is, as far as we know, the first ensemble of its kind, and the largest choral group in the nation to focus entirely on the music of our time. C4 operates two choruses of different sizes. The 16-voice Chamber Chorus rehearses every week on Thursday nights and sings all of the repertoire on each concert. The C4 Symphonic Chorus is a larger group comprised of a rotating pool of singers called in for works that require additional forces in order to be effective.
Jonathan Scott joined the C4 Symphonic Chorus in the spring of 2008. This is his first concert as a Chamber Chorus member.
Deborah Skydell is Co-Director of the New York City Children’s Choir. She holds a BA from Haverford College, and an MM in choral music from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While in Illinois, Deborah was the director of the Chicago Chamber Choir, as well as Arava, a Jewish choir, and Amasong, a women’s chorus. Since moving to New York, she has been the Director of Lower School Music at the Berkeley Carroll School and Director of Music at Tuxedo Park School. She is also a fully certified Kodály music educator with a strong interest in world music. Her arrangements of folk songs for women’s choir have been performed by groups around the country.
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Christian Smythe hails from Danbury, CT. Since high school, Christian has been active in the Connectictut and New York areas as singer, actor, and oboist, appearing with local groups like the New York Metro Vocal Arts Ensemble, Chelsea Opera, The Big Apple Corps Symphonic Band, and the critically acclaimed ensemble Cerddorion. He has worked as vocal music teacher at Talent Unlimited High School since 2001, directing choirs and solo repertoire classes, teaching music theory and keyboarding, and being an over-all accompanist. His choirs have performed several of his choral
Voice Performance from Boston University where she studied with Mary Davenport and coached with Alan Rodgers. In New York she studies with Maria Farnworth. She has sung with many notable choral groups including Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Russian Chamber Chorus and Cantori New York. In 1987, Elisabeth was invited to sing with the Oregon Repertory Singers representing the United States at the 26th Choral Singing Festival in Kärnten, Austria where the group won both the Folk and Classical Repertoire competitions. Elisabeth performed in many Robert Shaw Choral Workshops at Carnegie Hall and was a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. She has served as section leader at The Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) and been a member of the professional choir at St. Ignatius of Antioch (Episcopal). As a soloist, Elisabeth can be heard on two recordings: My Heart is Ready, music of Yuri Yukechev (Russian Chamber Chorus), and, as the Mother of Iseut, in Le vin herbé by Frank Martin (I Cantori di New York).
playing violin, viola, flute, composing “serious” music, collaborating/writing with choreographers, dancing, doing handstands, and singing while walking down the street. When not teaching nonstop, Malina is generally creating some sort of performance art and collaborating with other artists. Check out her MySpace page for performance clips and information about upcoming concerts. Malina has written for/collaborated with Airelise, Laura Flowers, Nicole Speletic, Pat Catterson, and scored Jody Oberfelder’s film ‘LineAge’. She has danced with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects as a dancing violinist in both Serbia and Pennsylvania and performed her own choreography at the Southern Theater, Zenon Dance in Minneapolis, MN, and at the City Center Studios in NY. www.myspace.com/malinamorethanmusic
C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective
brazen guns and gentle doves Saturday, 22 November 2008, St Joseph’s Church, New York, NY
A Child’s Prayer (1996)
James MacMillan (b. 1959)
Karen Siegel, Franny Geller, soloists Jonathan David, conductor
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Naoko Masui was born and lives in Osaka, Japan. She came to New York in April 2008 to work for a year as a volunteer at a nursing home in Brooklyn. In Japan, she directed a senior choir and worked as a pianist and voice trainer for several choirs and as a church organist. She enjoys her musical life in New York, not only as a pianist and a song leader for religious activities at the nursing home, but also as a singer in C4, the Columbia Collegium Musicum and the Park Slope United Methodist Church Choir. She looks forward to taking many precious memories back to Japan with her when she returns next spring.
In addition to his work with C4, David Rentz directs Guildsingers, an early music ensemble. He also directs the choruses at the Brearley School and serves as assistant conductor for the New Amsterdam Singers. He has earned graduate degrees in choral conducting from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and, most recently, Yale University, where he was co-director of the University Chapel Choir. David is also an active composer whose works have been performed by, among others, the Madison (WI) Youth Choirs, the Washington University Chamber Chorus, the Milwaukee Young Artists Festival Ensemble, and the Yale Camerata.
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Even back in Minnesota, Malina Rauschenfels always had a short attention span. Although she has spent nearly a quarter century playing the cello at Eastman (BM), Juilliard (MM), and around town, large chunks of that time were also spent
Karen Siegel grew up harmonizing doowop tunes with her family, and went on to study voice, piano, cello, and eventually composition. She holds a Master’s degree in Composition from NYU, where she studied with Marc Antonio Consoli, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Yale. Additional studies include coursework with Conrad Cummings at the Juilliard Evening Division and vocal instruction with Lavinia Bertotti
Yellow is the Color of Ribbons (2008) †
Karen Siegel (b. 1980)
next to of course god america i (1992) David Rentz, conductor
James Bassi (b. 1961)
Adira LeBoeuf, soloist Phillip Cheah, conductor
The Foggy Dew (2008) †
arr. Christopher Baum (b. 1974)
Jonathan David, Erica Lowe, soloists Deborah Skydell, conductor
Sonnets of War and Mankind (2003) ‡ I. See how these masses mill and swarm II. Epitaph for the Race of Man
Stacy Garrop (b. 1969)
Karen Siegel, Franny Geller, soloists Christopher Baum, conductor
TEN-MINUTE INTERMISSION
Shiloh (2001)
Jonathan David (b. 1965)
Christopher Baum, conductor
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Cry Peace (2004)
Libby Larsen (b. 1950)
O tristia secla priora (Pro Pace Motet No. 2)(1958)
John Joubert (b. 1927)
Malina Rauschenfels, conductor David Rentz, conductor
Devastation (2008) †
Malina Rauschenfels (b. 1978)
Franny Geller, Malina Rauschenfels, overtone soloists Phillip Cheah, Jim Bilodeau, Daniel Andor, Sally Fenley, Shinok Chung, Tina Goldstein, Erica Lowe, Adria LeBoeuf, David Rentz, soloists Karen Siegel, conductor
A Farewell to Arms (2001) §
Richard Rodney Bennett (b. 1936)
Malina Rauschenfels, violoncello Phillip Cheah, conductor
† World premiere
‡ East Coast premiere
§ New York premiere
Program Notes & Texts A Child’s Prayer
Yellow is the Color of Ribbons
A Child’s Prayer is a response to the 1996 massacre at the Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, during which 16 children and one teacher were gunned down. While two soprano soloists soar angelically above, the chorus sings music of a character that, to start, appears to belie the text’s message of religious consolation. The word ‘welcome’ is sung to a starkly somber cycle of chords, while the chorus, on the repeated minorkey hammerings of “joy”, might as well be screaming “Why?!” The music is reading between the lines here. The turning point comes on the word “love”, first heard in a single, exposed soprano soloist voice. When the chorus re-enters on the word, the mood is suddenly changed, with finally some sense of reconciliation, resignation, and unity with the spirit of the prayer. While the somber chords soon return, they quickly fade leaving the two soloists to close the piece alone. — Jonathan David JAMES MACMILLAN is today’s leading Scottish composer. He made his first big splash in 1990 at the British Proms with the orchestral work, The Confession of Isobel Gowdie. His 1992 percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, written for Evelyn Glennie, has been performed internationally over 350 times. A devout Roman Catholic and left-winger, MacMillan’s music is always spiritually rooted, and often politically engaged. His personal style is marked by rhythmic vitality, dramatic gestures and emotional directness.
There is a disturbing disjunction between the tragedy of the ongoing loss of our men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the undisturbed normality of our everyday lives. The big antiwar protests in New York City were years ago. In Midtown, a lone church’s display of ribbons and tags showing the names of departed soldiers serves as a reminder that we are still a country at war. Yellow is the Color of Ribbons explores this cognitive dissonance while experimenting with changing vocal tone colors. — Karen Siegel
Greenwich Village Singers, Westchester Oratorio Society and the Choral Society of the Hamptons, after which performance the East Hampton Star wrote of him: “… a major new composer who must be regarded as one of the important emerging musical voices of the future.”(12/11/07) Jonathan’s music has also been performed by Princeton Singers, the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, and the Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, among others. Music-Theatre works include Bronx Express (New York Fringe Festival, 2005) and Islands of Light (in progress). He continues work on Winter Birds, a large-scale song cycle for sopranist Phillip Cheah, to texts by North Carolina poet David Brendan Hopes. He is composer-in-residence for The Greenwich Village Singers. Jonathan studied with John Bavicchi and Don McDonnell at the Berklee College of Music, and is published by Oxford University Press.
Jamie Klenetsky is an award-winning composer and singer who resides in Morristown, NJ. She has sung in multiple college choirs while obtaining her BA in Music/Composition at Rutgers University, including the Kirkpatrick Choir. While in college, she performed a the Festival 500 Choral Festival in Newfoundland, Canada, and toured Taiwan, performing at various sites throughout the country. Jamie was the second-place winner of the San Fransisco Choral Artists’ 2007 “New Voices” competition, and a finalist in the Karen Sokolof Javitch 2008 “Emerging Jewish Composer” competition. Currently, Jamie sings professionally with the Seton Hall Chapel Choir. Her “other career” is web design; she currently works as the web designer of the government of Morris County, NJ.
C4 C4 Yellow is the color of ribbons. They hang from the old church fence on Twenty-ninth Street and read: Jonathan Kingman, twenty-one. Ramona Valdez, twenty. Brian Cutter, nineteen. There are few oak trees in Manhattan; Their trunks are all bare. The privileged read the papers, See the photographs, and Sigh, turn the page. Someone else’s husband. Someone else’s daughter. Someone else’s father. Someone else’s lover. Someone else’s problem. Someone else’s ribbon. Karen Siegel
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Welcome Jesu, Deep in my soul forever stay, Joy and love my heart are filling On this glad and sacred day. Traditional Communion prayer
next to of course god america i next to of course god america i is part of a larger set, love, war and politics, which, as a whole, reflects two aspects of E.E. Cummings’s writing: ardent love poetry and biting social commentary. next to of course god america i falls squarely in the latter camp, with its juxtaposition of jingoistic ramblings, ironic musings on the pointlessness of
Franny Geller is a Manhattan native and choral-music addict who would gladly sing the Mass in B-minor as a daily morning exercise routine. After fostering her love for Early Music at LaGuardia High School, she moved on to complete a BA in music at Queens College, and now enjoys quality choral time with the Bach Vespers Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Guildsingers, and C4. By day she coordinates workshops in a cappella singing for The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, watches birds in Central Park, and cuts small pieces of paper into interesting shapes.
Erica Lowe started singing in choirs when she was six and is now an active singer and conductor of various groups in New York and Hong Kong, her hometown. She is the founder of an eight-voice ensemble, I Cantanti, which gave its debut performance in Hong Kong in September 2007. While attending college in Madison, Wisconsin, she co-directed Museko, a 20-voice multicultural group that performs choral music from all over the world, and sang with the University of Wisconsin Concert Choir and Choral Union, both directed by Beverly Taylor. She was also a professional chorister at the eight-voice Choir of St. Ignatius of Antioch Church in New York City. She studied voice with Ho-Do Yung and Bruce Gladstone and presently studies with Kristine Kalina. She also studied choral conducting with Bruce Gladstone. By day, she manages a vocational English as a Second Language program for adult immigrants.
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Nate Graham is a composer and singersongwriter originally from the Philadelphia area. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition from The Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT, and has had his pieces performed in the United States and Spain. He currently lives in Yonkers, NY, and performs his songs all over the Northeast. www.TheGrahamStandard.com
Elizabeth Marker is an accomplished musician who has devoted the major portion of her career to the advancement of choral music. She holds a Master of Music in
C4 Chamber Chorus Christopher Baum received his BA in Classical Guitar from San Jose State University and his MM in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Denver. In November 2007, Chris conducted the premiere of Patrick Castillo’s This is the Hour of Lead, written for and performed by fellow C4 member Phillip Cheah. In April he conducted the premiere of Steven Ebel’s The Privilege of Art as part of New Music New York’s Festival 2008. Chris lives in Astoria.
and premiered through The Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York. Phillip Cheah is a member of the New York Choral Artists, the Concert Chorale of New York, and the renowned Bach Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. He has sung under the batons of Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Kurt Masur, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and performed with Olympia Dukakis, Barbara Bonney, Thomas Quasthoff, Angela Brown, members of Anonymous 4, NY Polyphony, and Alarm Will Sound. A tireless champion of contemporary music, he has performed works by Ralph Shapey, Joe Manieri, John Eaton, and David Lang, as well as the US premières of Paul McCartney’s Ecce Cor Meum and John Tavener’s monumental all-night vigil The Veil of the Temple. Phillip has conducted the Pocket Opera Players of Chicago, the Handel Society of Dartmouth, Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, the Indiana University Opera Theatre, and the Amato Opera, where he was also a répétiteur. As an accompanist, he has given recitals with the Aguavã New Music Studio, the Millennium Wagner Opera Company, and the Opera Collective of New York. He has recorded on the Pro Organo and Tzadik labels. Phillip teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and Barnard College, and has taught previously at the Putney School (Vermont) and Cathedral High School (NYC) where he was the Director of Music. He is presently in charge of Choral and Performance Promotions at Oxford University Press, having worked previously as the personal assistant to Peter Schickele, discoverer and perpetrator of that infamous mini-meister, P.D.Q. Bach.
war, and the breathtaking cynicism and emptiness of political mouthpieces. The cycle is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to the members of The Western Wind. – James Bassi JAMES BASSI’s compositions, including vocal, choral, orchestral, chamber, and theater works, have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and other major venues. He has collaborated as a pianist and music director with such singers as Deborah Voight, Jessye Norman, Judy Kaye, and Ann Crumb. He also received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his work as composer-in-residence with the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble.
rebellion was quelled after only six days of fighting, but it set in motion the forces of resistance that would eventually bring about the formation of the Republic of Ireland. Accordingly it is often regarded as the first battle in what would eventually become Ireland’s War for Independence. The authorship of “The Foggy Dew” is disputed. The tune is nearly identical to an older air, “The Banks of the Moorlough Shore”, while the words are generally attributed either to Charles O’Neill, a parish priest who was reputedly inspired to write the poem while attending the first sitting of the Irish Parliament in 1919, or to Peadar Kearney, who wrote the words to the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland. The text may be a bit obscure to a 21st-century American audience, so a brief explanation of some significant words and phrases follows: Wild geese – a common term in Irish history, originally applied to Irish soldiers who left their homeland to fight in continental European armies. The Easter Rising took place during World War I, when many young Irishmen were fighting and dying in far-off places under the British flag. The sentiment expressed here is that these men should rather have been at home fighting for their own nation’s independence. Suvla – a bay on the Aegean coast of the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey; a British landing site during the Battle of Gallipoli (one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war) in 1915. Sud-el-Bar (in modern Turkish, Seddülbahir) – a village at Cape Helles, also on the Gallipoli peninsula. This too was a British landing zone in 1915. Royal Meath – a reference to the rebels’ attack on the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at Ashbourne, County Meath, the Rising’s most significant action outside of Dublin.
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James Bilodeau grew up in the Adirondacks. He spent his youth singing in church choirs, school choruses and several musicals. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Production and Technology from the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT. At Hartt he also studied choral arts and conducting with Dr. Edward Bolkovac and voice with Janine Hawley and Janet Alcorn. Since moving to New York, James has sung with the Empire City Men’s Chorus under Dr. Jonathan Babcock and with C4. Professionally, he works as a Talk Radio Imaging Producer for Sirius XM Radio.
Timothy Brown completed his BA from the University of North Texas and has been a choral professional for over 20 years. As a composer, he focused for a time on music for the theatre after relocating to New York City. Tim’s Curious George toured nationally for over ten years and his songs were showcased at the West Bank Theatre, the BMI Workshop, and in the Donnell Library ‘Songbook’. On the classical side, Tim studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Nils Vigeland. His Incidental Dance Suite was premiered at Merkin Concert Hall, and his Epitaph (Songs on Poems of Dorothy Parker) was recorded by Metropolitan Opera mezzo, Theadora Hanslowe. His church music includes Christ Our Passover and Eloi, Lama Sabbachtani, both commissioned
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Jonathan David received commissions in 2007 from the New York Treble Singers and the Thanks-giving Foundation of Dallas. In December his music was sung by the
“next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn’s early my country ‘tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?” He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)
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The Foggy Dew This traditional Irish song commemorates the Easter Rising of 1916, in which Irish nationalists attempted to win their nation’s independence from Great Britain. The
Pearse – Patrick (or Padraig) Pearse, one of the leaders of the uprising, executed for treason in May 1916. Cathal Brugha (born Charles Burgess) – a rebel officer, badly wounded in the fighting and later killed during the Irish Civil War. Fenians – Irish nationalists, especially those committed to the cause of armed revolution. Seven tongues of flame – a reference to the seven leaders of the Easter Rising (Pearse among them) who signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, a declaration of independence from the United Kingdom. All seven were executed in May 1916. – Christopher Baum
By each shining blade a prayer was said, that to Ireland her sons be true, But when morning broke, still the war flag shook out its folds in the foggy dew. Oh, the bravest fell, and the Requiem bell rang mournfully and clear For those who died that Eastertide in the springtime of the year, And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few, Who bore the fight that freedom’s light might shine through the foggy dew. Traditional Irish song
II His golden locks Time hath to silver turned. O Time too swift! Oh swiftness never ceasing! His youth ‘gainst Time and Age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing. Beauty, strength, youth are flowers but fading seen; Duty, faith, love are roots and ever green. His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, And lover’s sonnets turn to holy psalms A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers which are Age’s alms. But though from Court to cottage he depart, His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart. And when he saddest sits in homely cell, He’ll teach his swains this carol for a song: Blest be the hearts that wish my overeign well. Curst be the soul that think her any wrong. Goddess, allow this aged man his right To be your bedesman now that was your knight. George Peele (1558? - 1597?)
C4 C4 Sonnets of War and Mankind
As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I, There armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by. No pipe did hum nor battle drum did sound its loud tattoo, But the Angelus bell o’er the Liffey’s swell rang out through the foggy dew. Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war, ’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar, And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through, While Britannia’s Huns, with their long range guns, sailed in through the foggy dew. ’Twas England bade our wild geese go, that “small nations might be free”; Their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves or the fringe of the great North Sea. Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or fought with Cathal Brugha, Their graves we’d keep where the Fenians sleep, ‘neath the shroud of the foggy dew. Oh the night fell black, and the rifles’ crack made perfidious Albion reel; In the leaden rain, seven tongues of flame did shine o’er the lines of steel.
Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet who produced a great body of writings in her lifetime. Among her works are twenty books of poetry, various essays, dramatic works, an opera libretto, and over two hundred sonnets. The sonnets cover a vast range of topics, including love, loss, beauty, music, death, war, science, legendary figures, and the end of humanity. Beautifully constructed, I find that many of Millay’s sonnets are well suited to be set to music. I am currently in the middle of a project in which I am progressively setting approximately twenty three of her sonnets for a large choral cycle. Sonnets of War and Mankind contains two poems: See how these masses mill and swarm and Epitaph for the Race of Man. They reflect Millay’s thoughts on the meaning of war and what will ultimately become of the human race. – Stacy Garrop STACY GARROP has won several awards including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble’s Harvey Gaul Competition, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize, San Francisco Song Festival’s Phyllis C. Wattis Prize for Song Composition, two Barlow Endowment commissions,
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cello part—Walton’s string concertos made an early and deep impression on him—with almost madrigalian vocal writing. There are appropriately retrospective touches: archaic Burgundian cadence figures with their sharpened fourths, echoes of Dowland’s lute songs, Purcellian scotch-snap rhythms on the word ‘Goddess’. The tightest of motivic unity holds this rich variety of elements together, until the final dying cello pizzicatos seem to tell us that the faithful old warrior has drawn his last breath. — John Rutter SIR RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT, CBE, was born into a musical family and began composing as a child. Informal sessions with the pioneering British serialist Elisabeth Lutyens aroused an interest in the avantgarde which was left unsatisfied by the traditional teaching of Lennox Berkeley and Howard Ferguson at the Royal Academy of Music, but assuaged by visits to the Darmstadt summer schools, and a two-year period of study in Paris with Pierre Boulez. Significant performing partnerships included with the pianist Susan Bradshaw, the soprano Jane Manning, and the horn player Barry Tuckwell. As a composer, Bennett adopted what Stephen Walsh has called “a neo-Romantic serialism closer to Berg than Webern”. This proved well suited to operatic composition, but he never found the experience of working in the opera house congenial, and after 1970 he abandoned the medium. However, he continued to cover a wide range of other genres, ranging from the major orchestral and choral works to song-cycles and instrumental solos. Bennett has also been composing film scores since his student years, an activity which he has described as musical “journalism”, but one to which he has brought a strong gift for melody and for the immediate creation of mood. He has also composed concert works in a true jazz idiom, including most recently Rondel in centenary homage to Duke Ellington.
For some years Bennett considered the different strands of his compositional activity — concert music, film music, jazz, and (yet another area of expertise) simple music for young performers — as entirely separate from one another. But the direct contact with audiences which his cabaret performances brought him encouraged him to reach out to the general concertgoer. In these pluralist days, Bennett seems confident and relaxed enough to have settled into a freely tonal idiom: this is clearly the music he wants to write now, and music of genuinely broad appeal. — Anthony Burton
Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s First Hearing Composition Competition, Omaha Symphony Guild’s International New Music Competition, and the New England Philharmonic’s Call for Scores Competition. Her works are being performed this season by mezzo-soprano Buffy Baggott, Anaphora, Biava Quartet, duo46, Indiana University’s New Music Ensemble, Lincoln Trio, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Erato Chamber Orchestra, and the choirs C4, Chicago a cappella, and musica intima. She has attended residences at the Aspen Music Festival, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Banff Centre for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony, Ragdale Foundation, Wellesley Composers Conference, and Yaddo, and has twice served as a composerin-residence of the Music in the Loft chamber series. Her String Quartet No. 2: Demons and Angels and Lo Yisa Goy (for a cappella choir) were both recorded and commercially released within the past year by Cedille Records. Her association with Cedille Records continues with the recording of Ars Poetica, to be released this spring on a “Billy Collins Suite” CD, and an all-Garrop CD to be recorded next year containing String Quartet No. 3: GAIA, In Eleanor’s Words, and a new piano trio. Her works are published by Theodore Presser and Hildegard.
II. Epitaph for the Race of Man Here lies, and none to mourn him but the sea, That falls incessant on the empty shore, Most various Man, cut down to spring no more; Before his prime, even in his infancy Cut down, and all the clamour that was he, Silenced; and all the riveted pride he wore, A rusted iron column whose tall core The rains have tunnelled like an aspen tree. Man, doughty Man, what power has brought you low, That heaven itself in arms could not persuade To lay aside the lever and the spade And be as dust among the dusts that blow? Whence, whence the broadside? whose the heavy blade? . . . Strive not to speak, poor scattered mouth; I know. Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
C4 C4 I The helmet now an hive for bees becomes, And hilts of swords may serve for spiders’ looms; Sharp pikes may make Teeth for a rake; And the keen blade, th’arch enemy of life, Shall be degraded to a pruning knife. The rustic spade Which first was made For honest agriculture, shall retake Its primitive employment, and forsake The rampires steep And trenches deep. Tame conies in our brazen guns shall breed, Or gentle doves their young ones there shall feed. In musket barrels Mice shall raise quarrels For their quarters. The ventriloquious drum, Like lawyers in vacations, shall be dumb. Now all recruits, But those of fruits, Shall be forgot; and th’unarmed soldier Shall only boast of what he did whilere, In chimney’s ends Among his friends. Ralph Knevet (1600-1671)
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Shiloh
The Tennessee field near the Methodist church called Shiloh was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Herman Melville wrote Shiloh: A Requiem (April 1862) two years later. The poem begins and ends in the present-day natural world of birds, clouds and rain, while in between the poet time-travels back to the earlier carnage. My setting begins with a pictorial suggestion of the ‘skimming swallows.’ After the ‘bullet’ knocks the poet out of his reverie, the birds return in an aleatoric section, suggesting the flock has grown. The prevailing contrapuntal texture of the piece is relieved by the hymn-like sections describing the lonely church and the prayers of the dying. –Jonathan David
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I. See how these masses mill and swarm See how these masses mill and swarm And troop and muster and assail; God! We could keep the planet warm By friction if the sun should fail. Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Mars, If no prow cuts your arid seas, Then in your weightless air no wars Explode with such catastrophes As rock our planet all but loose From its frayed moorings to the sun. Law will not sanction such abuse Forever; when the mischief ’s done, Planets, rejoice, on which at night Rains but the twelve-ton meteorite.
Shiloh: A Requiem (April 1862) Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the field in clouded days, The forest-field of Shiloh – Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched one stretched in pain Through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh — The church so lone, the log-built one, That echoed to many a parting groan And natural prayer Of dying foemen mingled there — Foemen at morn, but friends at eve — Fame or country least their care: (What like a bullet can undeceive!) But now they lie low, While over them the swallows skim, And all is hushed at Shiloh. Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Cry Peace
permanent place for her works in the concert repertory. As a vigorous, articulate advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum, which has become an invaluable aid for composers in a transitional time for American arts. A former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony and the Colorado Symphony.
JOHN JOUBERT was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and has lived in England since 1946. He taught at the University of Birmingham from 1962 to 1986 before retiring to focus on composition. Best known for his Christmas carol “Torches”, Joubert is a prolific composer of vocal and instrumental music, with over 160 works to his credit. He still lives and works in Birmingham, and been an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University since 1997. O trista secla priora, que vos docuere sepulcra animisque parando nociva bella fabricare pericla? Which of you first, you ages past, Found out this art of dying young? Showed how, in wits new-kindled fire, To forge the enormous pains of war? Heu quis prior ille piator qui cusor in arte gabrina variavit in igne figuras, cudens gladii male formas? Who was that first false celebrant, Who at the Office of the anvil learned To vary forms by means of flame, And beat out swords to Hell’s design? Quis denique Martia primas arcus volucresque sagittas ignivit et edidit iras, mortes stabilivit amaras? And who was next in primacy, To find a shape for flying wrath, Fashion the bow and arrow tips, Stake down the bitterest form of death? Qui spicula cudit in usus, conflavit in incude funus; lamne tenuavit et ictus, ventris vacuaret ut hastus. Skill to turn spikes for use in war Has made the forge a funeral pyre; The flattened blade, beat out with pain Is turned to disembowel men.
Docuit quoque cuspide mortem qui duxit in ordine martem; amiserat et quia mentem umbre tenuere tumentem. Only to die upon the spear He taught, who taught us shield’s defence; Wit seems to climb to sight of power, But shadows hold the shattered brains. Eugenius Vulgarius (10th century) Translated by G. K. Hunter
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Libby Larsen included the following words of Buddha in her publication of Cry Peace: “Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.” This piece includes the word “peace” in 23 languages. It is a sort of musical prayer requesting peace in our time. The chords seem to depict the struggle, constantly searching for harmony but always ending up with one or two dissonant notes among the rest. – Malina Rauschenfels LIBBY LARSEN is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over twelve operas. Grammy Award winning and widely recorded, including over fifty CDs of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a
Pace – Italian Paci – Maltese Aman – Uru (Pakistan) Rauha – Finnish Udo – Igbo (Nigeria) Shlomo – Syraic/Aramaic Sholom – Hebrew Pokoj – Belorussian/Polish Suhl – Dari (Persia) Sith – Scottish high Mir – Croatian/Czech/Russian high Fred – Fresian/Norwegian/Danish/Swedish Frieden – German Bēke – Hungarian high Hé Píng – Chinese Pax – Latin
c4ensemble.org O tristia secla priora
My three motets, Pro Pace, though written at different times, form a triptych on the subject of peace. The second motet, O tristia secla priora, which was the last in order of composition, is a 10th century Latin lament for the day on which man first invented weapons for use against his own kind, and a protest against such use. – John Joubert
Devastation
This piece was written as an aural response to the paintings of Anselm Kiefer, such as Aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorem (Let the earth be opened and send forth a Savior) or Nachricht vom Fall Trojas (News of the Fall of Troy). It is meant to depict some of my visceral response to his monumental paintings of landscapes after war. — Malina Rauschenfels
A Farewell to Arms
Two related poems, one Jacobean, the other Elizabethan, are juxtaposed on the theme of the old soldier recalling past wars and his present role in time of peaceful retirement— surely relevant in the 1950s when Bennett first encountered these poems as a schoolboy. Peele’s helmet-as-beehive image seems to have sparked off Knevet’s imaginative catalogue of further examples of swordsinto-ploughshares, and whether by design or not, the two poems complement each other well: Knevet focuses on the instruments of war, Peele on the soldier himself. In Bennett’s setting a solo cello suggests the central character of the sturdy old soldier looking back over past battles, reflecting on the passage of time and the transience of military glory, youth, and life itself. Solo instrumental writing has always appealed to Bennett, and in A Farewell to Arms he successfully integrates an eloquent, romantic
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