Dear Singers
As I am writing this, we have not completed our winter concert. We will be singing the Vivaldi Gloria and Bernstein Chichester Psalms with orchestra along with some pop classics on January 18 and 19. If you are not singing with us this time, be sure to come and hear a wonderful concert.
Now we look forward to new and different musical literature when we return on February 4. The concert is titled “Earth Song” and includes music celebrating nature along with a little bit of an admonition to protect it.
The program will begin with two rather dark pieces, “Kasar mie la gaji” — The Earth is Tired — by Alberto Grau and “Break, Break, Break” a piece set to a sad Tennyson poem about lost love by an unknown composer, Mark Reppert.🙂 Both pieces express discouragement. But the next piece brings hope. We hear the call of “The Bluebird” (by Charles Villiers Stanford) coming out of the darkness. The first half continues with “O Lovely Night” by Johannes Brahms, the fun Renaissance madrigal “Sweet Suffolk Owl” by Thomas Vautor and a wild piece by Eric Whitacre, “Little Birds.” The final piece of the first half is the sunny “Away From the Roll of the Sea” by Allistar MacGillvray, a piece the choir sang many years ago.
The second half begins with “The Lark In the Clear Air”, an Irish folk song arranged by Andrew Carter. It is the story of a young lover who is encouraged to pursue his love by the song of the lark. Another inspiring piece on the second half is “The Prow” by the young composer Matthew Hazzard. It tells of an exhilirating day out on the wild sea. We will then travel out to the prairie with a luscious arrangement by one of our favorite arrangers, Mark Hayes, of the old, familiar “Home on the Range”.
The program ends with a warning and hope. In a clever arrangement by Matt and Adam Podd (aka The Podd Brothers) Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” tells us that “…you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” But, the final piece and namesake of the concert is “Earth Song” by Frank Ticheli. He tells us, “The scorched earth cries out in vain, O war and power you blind and blur,…[but] through darkness and strife I’ll sing!”
YouTube video links for most of this music are at the bottom of this letter and also on the website, siskiyousingers.org. For those who would like to get to work on the music before our first rehearsal, PDFs will be on the website soon. The password to the members section is “silentnight” (no quotes).
Our concerts will be May 10 and 11 at SOU Recital Hall. Rehearsals will be held on Tuesdays at Ashland United Methodist Church. We will rehearse from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM beginning with our first rehearsal on February 4.
Be sure to invite your choral-singing friends to audition. They can audition at 6:30 pm on February 4 or 11 or by making arrangements with me before our first rehearsal. Please have them send an email to me at markreppert@gmail.com to schedule an audition time.
I am so excited about this concert. We can be inspired by this wonderful music and enjoy singing it with our friends! I look forward to seeing all of you on February 4
Mark
Kasar mie la gaji – Grau
The Bluebird – Stanford
O Lovely Night – Brahms
We will do it in English
Sweet Suffolk Owl – Vautor
Little Birds – Whitacre
Away From the Roll of the Sea – MacGillvray
The Lark in the Clear Air – Irish, arr. Carter
The Old Carrion Crow – Nova Scotia
The Prow – Hazzard
Home on the Range – arr. Hayes
Big Yellow Taxi – Mitchell, arr. Podd Brothers
Earth Song – Ticheli