Summer 2011 newsletter/new repertoire suggestions

Hi choral director friends,

Since I last spoke to you in January, I've had some great experiences; I conducted premieres of two pieces commissioned by the Hong Kong International School Festival (organized by Calvin College alum David Baldwin) and really enjoyed my week of working with the young musicians there plus my sightseeing all over Hong Kong, including a trip to the REALLY BIG BUDDHA on Lantau Island.




Of the two pieces I wrote for Hong Kong one will be published, "May I be Happy", (SA/piano) soon by Roger Dean, and the other, "Clap your Hands" (also SA/piano with some optional perc) I am publishing personally. Treble directors, let me know if you would like to see free perusal scores. And by the way, "Clap your Hands" is very uptempo, fun, and a bit of a sequel to my children's choir mega-hit "Peace on Earth and lots of little crickets".Here's a link to a youtube performance conducted by Courtney Connelly in late Spring.

The national ACDA conference in my hometown of Chicago was a blast both on a professional and personal level. And the concert season wrapped up with a one week residency with the Cincinnati Children's Choir directed by Robyn Lana. The advanced ensemble premiered two more commissioned pieces in great fashion, one of which, the bouncy and fun "Rain" (SSA/piano) will be published by Roger Dean and the other, a very lyrical piece called "Paint the Stars" (SSA/piano flute) which I will publish personally. The truly delightful texts were by members of the choir and I have recordings of the pieces but they are not yet posted on my website (please inquire).Again, if you'd like a free perusal score of these, let me know. These pieces would generally be appropriate for mid to advanced treble choirs up through HS or early college level age women's choirs.

For those of you with mixed HS through college/professional choirs I'd like to suggest a few extended works of mine. These were commissioned pieces with very successful premieres and a few performances after that. But because of their length most every publisher has shied away from putting them into print, thus the need for me to personally advocate for them to receive further performances. In general I think the texts I discovered to set are amazing, and the imagery and content of these texts really inspired my writing. Let me know if you would like to see perusal scores, and most of them already have some sample pages/recordings up on my website at www.paulcarey.net - I have created hyperlinks for most of these pieces:

"El Limonar Florido" (The Lemon Grove in Blossom) SATB/solo violin/solo cello. 4 movements, about 17 minutes. Gorgeous Spanish texts by Antonio Machado. Choral parts not difficult. This piece received two very nice performances this past season- one from Grinnell College directed by John Rommereim and the other from Diana Saez' Coral Cantigas in Washington, D.C.

"Missa Brevis Incheon" SATB div a cappella. A bravura 16 minute work commissioned by Hak-won Yoon and the Incheon City Chorale and premiered by them in Seoul in 2009. Here's a challenge for a university or professional choir.

"Endless Worlds" SATB div a cappella. Wonderful texts about music and nature by Tagore. This was commissioned by an ambitious high school choir and they pulled it off. About 15minutes.

"Into this World" (Four Choral Seasons) SATB/piano. Four texts suggesting the seasons of nature and of our lives. A really sweet, lyrical 16 minute piece. The texts are by Elinor Wylie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rainer Marie Rilke, and Natalie Goldberg

"1944" SATB/string orchestra, or strings one to a part. Highly imaginative WWII text by Hilda Doolittle (HD). The text actually suggested tying in elements of the Bach Christmas Oratorio. I admit it's a slightly odd piece with the war and slight Christmas element, but that's just the way it turned out!

"The Bethlehem Star" SATB divisi a cappella. This was a Christmas work commission from Nancy Menk and the South Bend Chamber Singers. About 18 minutes with great texts by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

"Winter's Night Carol" SATB(SA)/brass quintet. Thus was a Christmas work commission by an adult choir who had a children's choir associated with them, so there is a children's choir element but it can be easily taken by some of the women of an SATB choir. A very nice recent performance by Illinois Wesleyan University. Nine minutes long with text by Thomas Merton.

Three shorter recent pieces:

Christmas Bells" SATB/organ/brass/perc/handbells. Commissioned by Northern Arizona University for their 2010 Holiday concerts- this festive piece was a big hit last December.

"Voices of Earth" SATB/piano. Not difficult and very lyrical, commissioned by Briar Cliff University as part of their ”Care for Creation” initiative this past year.

"Prairie Songs" SATB/piano. 5 minutes and no divisi. Sweet Americana text by Carl Sandburg. Fun elements of Scott Joplin, Ives, and Copland in the mix.

There you have it- a whole bunch of pieces with great texts and the best music I could think of in setting them, and of course, almost no chance of conventional publication due to their length or difficulty level, or other elements(sigh). Let me know if you'd like to consider any of these pieces for performance!

Best wishes,

Paul

PS I'm leading an amazing 24 voice women's choir at the North Carolina Governor's School in Raleigh right now, and will be taking a few days off to present two interest sessions at next week's Nebraska ACDA summer session thanks to an invitation from Matt Harden. Sig Johnson is including my "Thou art the Sky" in the directors' choir so it will also be good to see Sig again!

The Lemon Grove in Blossom (settings of poetry by Antonio Machado)

My setting of Antonio Machado's poetry, titled El Limonar Florido (The Lemon Grove in Blossom), was performed twice this year. In the fall John Rommereim led the Grinnell College Singers in a wonderful performance I was able to attend, and just a few weeks ago Diana Saez' great group Cantigas performed it in Washington, D.C. I hope more people will discover this seventeen minute, four movement piece as I feel the poetry is truly beautiful and eloquent, and I am very pleased with my setting which is scored for SATB/solo violin and cello. All the choirs who have sung this piece, plus the audiences, have loved it. The choral parts are average difficulty and here and there present reasonable challenges in various areas of choral singing.


Click this link to go to my webpage for the piece- which includes sound files from a very lovely lyrical performance by Calvin College a few years ago, led by Dr. Joel Navarro.


This was a commission from John Delorey for the WPI Glee Club’s 135th anniversary. After the wonderful premiere performance in Worcester, MA the group sang it on tour in Spain in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Toledo. I am told by John that the piece received immediate standing ovations in Spain, something which I was very pleased to hear, as I was concerned if Spanish audiences would like what I had done with the dreamscape texts of their most beloved poet of the early twentieth century.

One of the most fun parts of the piece occurs in the third movement where I try to create the feeling of Machado's interrupted dream. To do so, I wrote in little percussion parts and oddly intrusive things like whistles and the clicks of toy cricket clickers. When I arrived in Worcester close to the premiere I could see that this was great fun to rehearse, but the overall sound was not what I expected -- it was better! It's not too hard to hear straight choral sound in your head, but this big jumble of singing and odd noises was something I couldn't really imagine. Hearing it in real time with the enthusiastic, willing-to-try-new-things young performers was great fun.


Program Notes from the premiere:

The texts for this composition are all early works of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), and most of them reflect his interest in dreamscapes. They also are quite representative of his style of observation: an object, or especially a series of objects, is simply announced, and then Machado makes or implies an interpretation of their meaning after the fact. Many of these objects are things of simple natural beauty -- a rainbow, a tree, a flock of birds -- yet they seem to also represent some deeper resonance for Machado, often colored by his lifelong melancholy over the death of his wife at an early age. I have used one of his simple observed dreamscape objects, “el limonar florido…” as the title for the whole piece simply because I think it is a wonderful image and because the words have such a beautiful liquid sound.



Insights into Machado by translator Willis Barnstone:

“ Machado sings in all his poems…often in his landscapes, as in a Chinese Taoist painting, the author seems to disappear because scene is all... behind the vision the poet is still there… walking with open eyes filled with memories of poplars by the river, a dry elm waiting for resurrection, and the Espino hill on which he wheels his dying wife. “



Movement I
The music opens with a joyous dance, “the hand in dreaming of being a star sower.” From the point where the poem speaks of “an enormous lyre” the music contracts, by way of polytonal lines in contrary motion leading to unisons, to signify the “few true words.”

Movement II
The “tranquil afternoon” is signified by the repetitive cello line, over which the violin plays a very plaintive, meandering melody. The voices speak wistfully of having “had some joys,” and the cello brings the movement to an end by taking the melody first heard in the violin.

Movement III
The dream world, “the torn cloud, the rainbow,” is introduced by the tambourine and then taken up by the violin and cello, who play at never agreeing on which measures the music’s hemiolas should occupy. But then the dreamer is woken -- noise and distraction (cricket clickers, drums, and mysterious whistles) confound “the magic crystal glass“ of the dream. The poet recaptures some of his beautiful dreamscape, “the lemon grove in blossom, … the sun, water, rainbow,” but the fragments of dream then drift away with the tambourine “like a soap bubble in the wind.”

Movement IV
A “soul light, holy light, beacon” overhead, a man below stumbling on a pilgrimage -- represented in the music by a dirge-like melody in the voices alternating with two string chords with an unsettling dissonance. Who is the man and where is he going? Machado leaves that to the reader to decide. Perhaps it is Machado himself, and he then once again dreams, turning away from the serious dirge to a rather drolly playful conversation with God, initiated musically by the cello.


TEXTS
translations by Willis Barnstone, used by permission

I. Tal vez la mano, en sueño
del sembrador de estrellas,
hizo sonar la música olvidada
como una nota de la lira immense,
y la ola humilde a nuestros labios vino
de unas pocas palabras verdaderas.

Perhaps the hand in dreaming
of being a star sower
made forgotten music echo
like a note from an enormous lyre,
and to our lips a tiny wave
came with a few true words.

II. Tarde tranguila, casi
con placidez de alma,
para ser joven, para haberlo sido
cuando Dios quiso, para
tener algunas alegrías…lejos,
y poder dulcemente recordarlas.

Tranquil afternoon, almost
with placidity of soul,
to be young, to have been so
when God willed it, to
have had some joys…far away,
and be able tenderly to recall them.

III. Desgarrada la nube; el arco iris
brillando ya en el cielo,
y en un fanal de lluvia
y sol el campo envuelto.
Desperte. ¿Quien enturbia
los magicos cristales de mi súeno?
Mi corazón latía
atónito y disperse.
…¡El limonar florido,
el cipresal del huerto,
el prado, verde, el sol, el agua, el iris!...
¡el agua en tus cabellos!...
Y todo en las memoria se perdia
como una pompa de jabón al viento.

The torn cloud, the rainbow
now gleaming in the sky,
and the fields enveloped
in a beacon of rain and sun.
I woke. Who is confounding
the magic crystal glass of my dream?
My heart was beating
aghast and bewildered.
The lemon grove in blossom,
cypresses in the orchard,
the green meadow, the sun, water, rainbow,
the water in your hair!
And all in my memory was lost
like a soap bubble in the wind.

IV. Luz de alma, luz divina,
Faro, antorcha, estrella, sol…
un hombre a tientas camina;
lleva a la espalda un farol.
Amoche soñé que oía
a Dios, gritándome: ¡Alerta!
Luego era Dios quien dormia,
y yo gritaba: ¡Despierta!

Soul light, holy light,
beacon, torch, sun, star.
A man stumbles on a road,
a lantern on his shoulder.
Last night I dreamt I heard
God shouting at me: Take care!
Later, God was sleeping
and I shouted: Awake!

Across the ocean!

I'm here in Grinnell Iowa where the Grinnell College Singers directed by John Rommereim will sing my extended work El Limonar Florido (The Lemon Grove in Blossom) later today, with texts by the 20th century Spanish poet Antonio Machado.

And as I look at the hits from around the globe on my website, what pops up but this- a hit, looking at real pieces by moi- so therefore not a totally accidental error hit, by someone in Fuchal, on the island of Madeira! Madeira is the Portuguese controlled island out in the Atlantic Ocean, where my Portuguese ancestors (yes, the Carey dude is not totally Irish) lived for I don't know exactly how long. And it's that Portuguese bloodline that subtely influences my family, in some Portuguese noses, skin tone, and in my love for Portuguese/Spanish, ie. Iberian music. So how cool is it to see a hit show up on my stat counter from this tiny island, which for centuries has been famous for the fortified wine called Madeira, and more recently as a swanky resort destination.

The world keeps shrinking, usually in good ways! Also, btw, just now another hit-- this one from the Catalonia region in Spain, looking at my arrangement of the Catalonian Christmas Folk Song El Noi de la Mare, and then apparently exploring my wacky All Cat Love Song!

Here is a map of recent webpage hits- Madeira is that hit right in the middle, out to the west of Spain and Portugal in the Atlantic:

http://statcounter.com/project/standard/visitor_map.php?project_id=2320101


And here is a link to the webpage for my piece "El Limonar Florido":

http://paulcarey.net/Music/El_Limonar.htm

And if you'd just like to see the beautifully lyrical texts here they are:

I. Tal vez la mano, en sueño del sembrador de estrellas, hizo sonar la música olvidada como una nota de la lira immense, y la ola humilde a nuestros labios vino de unas pocas palabras verdaderas.	Perhaps the hand in dreaming of being a star sower made forgotten music echo like a note from an enormous lyre, and to our lips a tiny wave came with a few true words.
II. Tarde tranguila, casi con placidez de alma, para ser joven, para haberlo sido cuando Dios quiso, para tener algunas alegrías…lejos, y poder dulcemente recordarlas.	Tranquil afternoon, almost with placidity of soul, to be young, to have been so when God willed it, to have had some joys…far away, and be able tenderly to recall them.
III. Desgarrada la nube; el arco iris brillando ya en el cielo, y en un fanal de lluvia y sol el campo envuelto. Desperte. ¿Quien enturbia los magicos cristales de mi súeno? Mi corazón latía atónito y disperse. …¡El limonar florido, el cipresal del huerto, el prado, verde, el sol, el agua, el iris!... ¡el agua en tus cabellos!... Y todo en las memoria se perdia como una pompa de jabón al viento.	The torn cloud, the rainbow now gleaming in the sky, and the fields enveloped in a beacon of rain and sun. I woke. Who is confounding the magic crystal glass of my dream? My heart was beating aghast and bewildered. The lemon grove in blossom, cypresses in the orchard, the green meadow, the sun, water, rainbow, the water in your hair! And all in my memory was lost like a soap bubble in the wind.
IV. Luz del alma, luz divina, Faro, antorcha, estrella, sol… un hombre a tientas camina; lleva a la espalda un farol. Amoche soñé que oía a Dios, gritándome: ¡Alerta! Luego era Dios quien dormia, y yo gritaba: ¡Despierta!	Soul light, holy light, beacon, torch, sun, star. A man stumbles on a road, a lantern on his shoulder. Last night I dreamt I heard God shouting at me: Take care! Later, God was sleeping and I shouted: Awake!

I'm totally looking forward to the performance today- which also includes works by Arvo Part and the very talented Tarik O'Regan.

Adios for now,

Paul