Songs of Renewal

​Katerina Gimon

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Madeleine Chow, Madi Bass, Anna Dunlavey, and Nancy Neiditz, soloists 

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This is the third movement in a set of four works called Elements

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fire

heat, light

strength, fuel, drive

burning, melting, evaporating, and transforming

fire

traditional Appalachian tune 

arr. Moira Smiley 

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Julia Napolitano and Nora Greenberg, soloists

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This tune has deep roots in the oral tradition of the Appalachian mountains. It was also printed in shape note song books during the nineteenth century. It has remained popular for centuries and has been recorded by Burl Ives, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, and most recently Ed Sheeran. 

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I am a poor wayfaring stranger

traveling through this world of woe. 

But there's no sickness toil nor danger

in that bright world through which I go. 

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I'm going there to see my father

I'm going there no more to roam 

I'm just a goin' over Jordan 

I'm just a goin' over home. 

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I know dark clouds are gathering o'er me

I know my way is rough and steep. 

Yet beauteous fields lie just before me

and lilies grow where angels sleep. 

Eric Whitacre

Phil Raskin, oboe

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Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling 

Where my dark lover lies. 

Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling 

At grey moonrise. 

 

Love, hear thou 

How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling, 

Ever unanswered, and the dark rain falling

Then as now. 

 

Dark too our hearts, O love, shall lie, and cbold 

As his sad heart has lain 

Under the moongrey nettles, the black mould 

And muttering rain.

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James Joyce (1882-1941) 

Anna-Mari Kähärä

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Julia Napolitano, solo 

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Jordan Smithson, Veronica Walton, Madeleine Chow, Theo Lakhdhir, small ensemble

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Tears coming to my eyes, 

Crying in a strange bed. 

I’ve got somewhere 

What a miserable mess. 

 

I’m crying my eyes out

I roll away the bleeding face, 

I’m going to lose your beautiful face 

I cry myself all my life. 

 

I’m crying, I’m crying saunas, 

I cry forests, I cry mountains, 

I cry lakes, I cry rivers, 

I cry myself all my life. 

 

That’s where the river came from, 

Of my crying waters. 

That’s where the sea came from. 

 

That’s where the river came from. 

That’s where the sea came from.

Jake Runestad

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I went out at night alone; 

The young blood flowing beyond the sea 

Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings–

I bore my sorrow heavily. 

 

But when I lifted up my head 

From shadows shaken on the snow, 

I saw Orion in the east 

Burn steadily as long ago. 

 

From windows in my father’s house, 

Dreaming my dreams on winter nights, 

I watched Orion as a girl 

Above another city’s lights. 

 

Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, 

The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars, 

All things are changed, save in the east

The faithful beauty of the stars. 

 

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) 

Evening Star who gathers everything 

Shining dawn scattered– 

You bring the sheep and the goats, 

You bring the child back to its mother. 

 

Sappho (c. 610-570 BCE)

Johannes Brahms 

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Hail Mary, full of grace,

The Lord is with thee;

Blessed art thou amongst women,

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners,

Now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

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Stephen Paulus

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The text of this piece comes from a poem written by the Medieval German mystic poet Mechtild of Magdeburg. Born into a noble family, she experienced her first religious vision at the age of 12 and they continued daily throughout her life. In 1230 she took religious vows with a group of evangelical women who chose to live in the world rather than a convent. Her book The Flowing Light of the Godhead was wan of the first German mystic texts composed in vernacular Low German rather than Latin. 

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I cannot dance, O Lord,

Unless You lead me.

If You wish me to leap joyfully,

Let me see You dance and sing—

 

Then I will leap into Love—

And from Love into Knowledge,

And from Knowledge into the Harvest,

The sweetest Fruit beyond human sense.

 

There I will stay with You, whirling.

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Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207-1282)

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

or not wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even okay if I don't paragraph

my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows where she picked that up

what I'm telling you is

Yes Yes Yes

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—Kaylin Haught (1947-2018)

arr. Alice Parker

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The tune of “Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal” was first published in the 1854 edition of Southern Harmony, a harp singing collection, where it went by the title Invitation.

 

Hark, I hear the harps eternal

Ringing on the farther shore,

As I near those swollen waters

With their deep and solemn roar.

 

And my soul, though stained with sorrow,

Fading as the light of day,

Passes swiftly o’er those waters,

To the city far away.

 

Souls have crossed before me, saintly,

To that land of perfect rest;

And I hear them singing faintly

In the mansions of the blest.

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Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah praise the lamb 

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, glory to the great I am. 

Lucrezia Vizzana (1590-1662) 

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Lucrezia Vizzana was an Italian singer, organist, and composer. Her collection of motets was published in 1623 and is the only collection of music ever published by a Bolognese nun. Archival work by Musica Secreta, a UK-based treble ensemble, has made her music, and the music of other female composers from this time period more accessible for performance. 

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The text for this piece comes from Psalm 8. 

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Domine, Dominus noster, quam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra!

quoniam elevata est magnificentia tua super cælos.

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Ex ore infantium et lactentium perfecisti

laudem propter inimicos tuos,

ut destruas inimicum et ultorem.

 

Quoniam videbo cælos tuos, opera digitorum tuorum,

lunam et stellas quæ tu fundasti.

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Domine, Dominus noster, quam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra! 

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O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in the whole earth!

Since your magnificence is lifted above the heavens.

 

You have brought praise from the mouths of babies

and infants because of your enemies,

so that you may destroy the enemy and avenger.

 

So I will see your heavens, the works of your fingers,

the moon and stars which you created.

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O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is your name in the whole earth!​​​​

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Stephanie Blumenstock, Thea Piltzecker, Veronica Walton, Leanna Tang, Juliana Napolitano, Theo Lakhdhir, Madeleine Chow, Nancy Neiditz, Amanda Savino, Hannah Moloshok, Anna Dunlavey, Megan Villa

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

Joan Szymko

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When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Wendell Berry (b. 1934) 

Arthur Arsenault, text 

Angèle Arsenault, music 

arr. Hart Rouge

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Julia Napolitano, Madeleine Chow, Amanda Savino, soloists 

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The words of Vichten are made up of nonsense syllables similar to Scottish mouth music where the voices are intended to mimic instruments.