Tomorrows

Close Your Eyes and Breathe

Let the Music Fill Your Soul

Text by Robert Bode, Music by Jacob Narverud

Cody Anderson, French Horn

All Things Are Connected

Voices of the Ancients

Words and Music by Don MacDonald

This we know

Text attributed to Chief Seattle. Music by Ron Jeffers

Someday Just Began

The Steady Light

Text by Sheila Dunlop, Music by Reginald Unterseher

Our Time (from “Merrily We Roll Along”) 

Words and Music by Stephen Sondheim, Arr. Phill Conrad

Now

No Time

Traditional, Arr. Susan Brumfield

Ad astra

Words and Music by Jacob Narverud

A Brighter Future

Shche ne Vmerla Ukrainy (National Anthem of Ukraine)

Ukrainian Lyrics by Pavlo Chubynsky,. English Lyrics by Phill Conrad.

Music by Mykhailo Verbytsky

Plyve kacha po Tysyni

Traditional, Arr. Pikkardiyska Tertsiya

This is My Song

Words by Lloyd Stone. Music by Jean Sibelius, Arr. Craig Hella Johnson

To the Dance

Tantsulaul

Text by Paul-Eerik Rummo, Music by Veljo Tormis

Fey-O

Haitian Voodoo Song, Arr. Sten Kallmann and Ethan Sperry

Thomas Håkanson, Percussion

Hope

Glory

Words and Music by John Stephens, Lonnie Lynn, and  Che Smith, Arr. by Eugene Rogers

Program Notes

Compiled by Phill Conrad

Close Your Eyes and Breathe

Let the Music Fill Your Soul

Text by Robert Bode, Music by Jacob Narverud

Cody Anderson, French Horn

Our program contains two original pieces, and one arrangement by American composer and arranger Jacob Narverud (b.1986).  A native Kansan, Jacob is the Founder/Artistic Director of the Tallgrass Chamber Choir, a professional ensemble of musicians from across the Great Plains. Navarud is the editor of a Choral Series with Santa Barbara Music Publishing and Hal Leonard Corporation.  He became a full-time composer in 2019 and resides on a farm in Maple Hill, Kansas with his husband Joshua East.

The text of this piece is by Robert Bode,  the artistic director of Choral Arts Northwest, a semi-professional chamber chorus in Seattle, WA. In the spring of 2010, Bode and Choral Arts NW received the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, presented by Chorus America.    A biography of the the composer, Jacob Navrud (b.1986) appears elsewhere in this program notes, under his composition Ad Astra. 

Navrud incorporates the French Horn into this piece, which is the instrument he first studied, starting in fifth grade.

Text: 

Come in, you sisters and brothers,
Come in, you cousins and daughters,
Come in, you seekers and doubters,
Let the music fill your soul!

Close your eyes and breathe together,
(Sit beside a perfect stranger)
Open to the Life around you,
Let the music fill your soul.

Come in you heros and artists
Come in, you scholars and rebels,
Come in you singers and lovers,
Let the music make you whole.

All Things Are Connected

Voices of the Ancients

Words and Music by Don MacDonald

Don Macdonald (b. 1966) is Canadian composer of music in a wide range of styles, including music for film, theatre, dance, chorus music, with, according to the bio on his website, " forays into everything from rock and jazz to world and folk music.".  He lives in Nelson, BC Canada and teaches at the Selkirk College Contemporary Music and Technology Program.

The text of Voices of the Ancients is not written in any particular language; rather, the syllables are rhythmic syllables inspired by the syllables used in the percussion music of India.

This we know

Text attributed to Chief Seattle. Music by Ron Jeffers

Chief Seattle (1786–1866) was a chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish peoples, indiginous peoples of the Pacific Northwest.  There are accounts that he made a speech in 1854 to an audience that included the first governor of Washington Territory (later the State of Washington).  While there is documentation that a speech took place, the authentic text of the speech (which was likely delivered in the Lushootseed language (as Chief Seattle did not speak English) is lost to history.  Nevertheless, there are many accounts—each of which is of dubious historical provenance— of the words Chief Seattle spoke on that occasion, and historians have been trying to unravel the reasons for the various versions ever since.

Regardless of whether these words are actually those of the historic Chief Seattle, they contain a powerful message about the interdependence of all living things.   The composer Ron Jeffers (1943-2017) Jeffers studied composition and choral conducting at the University of Michigan where he was a tenor soloist with the Michigan Men's Glee Club  Later, he was served as an associate professor and director of choral activities at Oregon State from 1974–1982, and as associate professor of theory & composition from 1982–1998. In 1988 he founded earthsongs, a company that publishes choral music from many different countries of the world and books of translations of foreign language texts.

Text: 

This we know.
The earth does not belong to us;
we belong to the earth.

This we know.
All things are connected
like the blood which unites one family.

All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the children of the earth.

We did not weave the web of life;
we are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web,
we do to ourselves.

Someday Just Began

The Steady Light

Text by Sheila Dunlop, Music by Reginald Unterseher

This piece by was one of the three pieces that our director Nicole introduced us to during our first rehearsal.    The composer Reginald Unterseher  is Music Director and Composer-in-Residence at Shalom United Church of Christ, Richland, Washington.  He was the Washington State Music Teacher’s Association’s “Composer of the Year” for 2013.   His website claims that "Reg has had more of his compositions performed in a nuclear reactor than any other composer in history, living or dead."  Concerning the text, poetry by Unterseher's spouse Sheila Dunlap, conductor James Walker writes: 

"For me, treading lightly as leaf is a wonderful image for keeping things in perspective. Keeping in mind my own shadow reminds me that I can either be a help or a hindrance to others in following the light, and I am called into a place of gratitude for those who have held the light for me, showing the way."

For his part, Unterseher writes: "This piece is dedicated to our heroes, those people who made the choice to be the light for us."

Text:

Let my footfall on this sacred earth tread lightly as a falling leaf.
Let my shadow from this blessed sun shut no one from the light.
Let my dance beneath these holy stars grow stronger with the years.
Let my heart expand with sky-wide love.

Those who go before hold high the steady light
that shows me where I am.

Our Time (from “Merrily We Roll Along”) 

Words and Music by Stephen Sondheim, Arr. Phill Conrad

Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021), who passed away just recently, was a giant of the american musical theatre, earning, according to Wikipedia: "eight Tony awards, an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom."The musical Merrily We Roll Along, with words and music by Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021), book by George Furth, and directed by Hal Prince was based on a 1934 play of the same name by Kauffman and Hart.  It opened in 1981, and closed almost immediately (just 54 previews and 16 performances), receiving terrible reviews.   It also happened to be the broadway debut of a young actor named Jason Alexander who would go on to, among other things, stardom as part of the Seinfeld cast.

The plot is a story of three friends that become bitter and jaded as they age,  but it is told backwards in time, so that by the end of show, where this piece appears, we see three young people full of hope about tomorrow.  During the 1990s, an arrangement of Our Time  by Larry Moore was performed by many gay choruses, including the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, and dozens of others—in fact, it became a kind of de-facto anthem among the gay chorus movement at the time.   That arrangement is sadly out of print, but as a tribute to Mr. Sondheim, who we lost this year, we perform this arrangement by Phill Conrad, a member of our chorus, and a faculty member at UC Santa Barbara.

Now

No Time

Traditional, Arr. Susan Brumfield

Dr. Susan Brumfield is the founder and Artistic Director of The West Texas Children’s Chorus. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Brumfield is known for her work as a teacher, author, composer and conductor, and is an internationally recognized expert in the Kodály approach to music education. Brumfield combines two camp meeting songs—Rise, O Fathers, and No Time—in this arrangement commissioned for the 2014 California All-State Men's Honor Chorus, directed by Z. Randall Stroope.

Ad astra

Words and Music by Jacob Narverud

Ad Astra is the second of two pieces by Jacob Navarud, the other being "Let the Music Fill Your Soul", with which we opened the program.  Ad astra combines Latin text from the motto of Navrud's home state of Kansas with its english translation along with additional lyrics by Navarud.

Latin Text: 

Ad astra per aspera
Sursum
Movere deinceps
Sine cura, post omnes.

English translation:

To the stars, through difficulties
Look upward
Move forward
Leave all cares behind

A Brighter Future

Shche ne Vmerla Ukrainy (National Anthem of Ukraine)

Ukrainian Lyrics by Pavlo Chubynsky,. English Lyrics by Phill Conrad.
Music by Mykhailo Verbytsky

According to Wikipedia: "The lyrics [of the Ukrainian National Anthem] constitute a slightly modified version of the first stanza of a patriotic poem written in 1862 by the poet Pavlo Chubynsky, a prominent ethnographer from Kyiv. In 1863, Mykhailo Verbytsky, a western Ukrainian composer and Greek-Catholic priest, composed music to accompany Chubynsky's text. The first choral performance of the piece was at the Ukraine Theatre in Lviv, in 1864."

We perform the piece with both the original Ukrainian lyrics, as well as an English version by chorus member Phill Conrad to fit the rhythm of the music, who also arranged this setting for men's chorus.   

Literal English Translation of Ukrainian (from Wikipedia):

Ukraine has not yet perished,
nor her glory, nor her freedom,
Upon us, fellow Ukrainians,
fate shall smile once more.

Our enemies shall vanish,
like the dew in the sun,
And we too shall rule, brothers,
in a free land of our own.

Souls and bodies we'll lay down,
all for our freedom,
And we'll show that we, brothers,
are of the Cossack nation!

English Adaptation

Ukraine's glory lives forever
See thy freedom's born again
Very soon we'll emerge victorious
Under freedom's blue skies

Those that would try to invade us
From their dust shall sunflowers bloom!
We Ukrainians shall live in freedom
In our peaceful homeland

We'll lay down our souls and bodies
To defend our freedom!
We shall show that we are worthy
Of a free Ukraine!

Plyve kacha po Tysyni

Traditional, Arr. Pikkardiyska Tertsiya

The Ukrainian folk song Plyne Kacha is, on the surface, about a duckling swimming on the Tisza river in Ukraine, but it is also a poem about the suffering brought about by war.   The song became known to a worldwide audience when the Ukrainian a cappella men's chorus Pikkardiyska Tertsiya (Picardy Third) performed it in Kyiv during a memorial service for those killed when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.    

Translation:

A duckling floats on the Tisza river:
Mother of mine, please don't scold me!"

Please don't  scold me in this dark hour
For I may die in a foreign land

I may die in a foreign land
Who will prepare my grave?

Strangers will prepare my grave
Will you mourn me, my mother?

My son, how could I not mourn
You were laying on my heart.

A duckling floats on the Tisza river.

This is My Song

Words by Lloyd Stone. Music by Jean Sibelius, Arr. Craig Hella Johnson

Finlandia (Op. 26) by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), is a tone poem written as part of a covert protest against Russian occupation and oppression in Finland.   The main theme is often used as a hymn tune.  Lloyd Stone wrote the English lyrics for what he called A Song of Peace: A Patriotic Song in 1934.   The arrangement we perform here for men's chorus is by Craig Hella Johnson (b. 1962), who founded the group Conspirare, and was also the second conductor of the men's chorus Chanticleer (succeeding the founding director Louis Botto.)

Text: 

This is my song, O God of all the nations
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine

To the Dance

Tantsulaul

Text by Paul-Eerik Rummo, Music by Veljo Tormis

Veljo Tormis (1930–2017) is an Estonian composer that wrote over 500 pieces of choral music, most of it, like this piece, is a capella, that is, performed with voices alone (no instrumental accompaniment.)  Tantsulaul is the story of someone that thinks they are a good dancer—but are they?

Estonian Lyrics:  (words in italics are nonsense syllables):

Las aga meie Mari tulla
küll mina teen tal jalad alla

Ait-tali-rali-raa, ali-ramp-tamp-taa
Utireetu, utireetu, trallalla.

Mul sukakannas suured augud
just nagu vana mära laugud.
Körv minul ajab jorupilli,
Alt-tare Jüri torupilli

Translation (words in italics are nonsense syllables):

Let our Mari come
I shall get her on her feet

Ait-tali-rali-raa, ali-ramp-tamp-taa
Utireetu, utireetu, trallalla.

My sock heels have holes
Like an old mare's blaze

My ears are singing
as if Jüri from next door was playing the pipes.

Fey-O

Haitian Voodoo Song, Arr. Sten Kallmann and Ethan Sperry

Thomas Håkanson, Percussion

Fey-O is a A Haitian Voodoo village song, with lyrics in Haitian Creole. The singers ask the doctor for leaves (fey-o), that is, some herbal medicine, to heal them of their sickness.  But music has its own power to heal, and soon everyone is dancing.

Haitian Creole Lyrics:

Fèy, o !
Sove lavi mwen,
Nan mizè mwen ye, o !

Pitit mwen malad,
Mwen kouri kay gangan, Similo

Si ou bon gangan
Sove lavi mwen,
Nan mizè mwen ye, o !

Translation:

Oh leaves, save my life. 
I'm in misery. Oh!

Little me is sick,
I run to the house of Similo (the spiritual healer)

If he's a good one,
he'll save my life.
I'm in misery. Oh!

Hope

Glory

Words and Music by John Stephens, Lonnie Lynn, and  Che Smith, Arr. by Eugene Rogers

The recording of this piece by John Legend and Common, which was part of the soundtrack for the movie Selma, was the winner of the 2015 Academy Award for Best Original Song.  In his program notes, arranger Eugene Rogers writes: "This inspirational song speaks of hope and looks to the future for healing in the midst of great division.   Rogers is the Associate Director of Choirs at the University of Michigan, where he conducts the Michigan Men's Glee Club, to whom this arrangement is dedicated.