Please enjoy this gorgeous video presentation by Sherri Lasko of my "Winter Solstice" for SSA/harp or piano. It's published by Roger Dean and if you like I can send you a free perusal score.
Here are comments from my website:
When I was asked to write a commissioned piece for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble I was determined to write something very special for the group, as they had been so kind as to present other pieces of mine on a number of earlier programs. I have always loved New Mexico, and decided that I would try to write a piece for them that would have a specifically New Mexico flavor. I eventually found and read many poems by New Mexico poets and settled on works by Miriam Sagen, Lonnie Howard, and the late Elizabeth Searle Lamb. Eventually I realized that if I used all of the poems I had selected by these three wonderful writers it would create a piece that might be too long and unwieldy, so I reluctantly dropped the long Sagen poem and all but one of the beautiful haiku by Lamb. I hope to set Miriam Sagen’s poetry in the near future and will also look at more of Elizabeth Lamb’s poetry as well.
The texts are about the winter solstice in New Mexico, a very special time and place. They are not Christmas texts, yet the passing of the winter solstice is, of course, often associated with the Christmas hope of renewal. What I have tried to write, with these poems as inspiration, is “night music”, a genre which I have always loved. Also, while the landscapes are New Mexican, I hope that the beauty of the texts and the winter solstice theme will still attract interest from choir directors and audiences in the larger choral world.
Sherri, Aidan, and I had a great time in Santa Fe during the week of the premiere with our hosts Linda and Jim Beck. Aidan especially enjoyed our own little casita with all its little pathways -- what a magical week! We also met Natalie Goldberg, who now lives in Santa Fe, and whose poetry I have set to music (My Friend Elijah, and Into this World) and really had a great time getting to know the main poet for this piece, Lonnie Howard. Lonnie's energy was so warm and positive -- just a wonderful person in so many ways.
One of my biggest supporters has always been Dr. Nancy Menk, director of choral organizations at the famous St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana. Nancy has commissioned works from me both for her college choir and her mixed choir, the South Bend Chamber Singers. I have always been a great admirer of her musical wisdom, and her amazing dedication to her craft and to the people she leads.
Recently the St. Mary's College Women's Choir went on a tour of China. This wasn't your usual tour- Nancy did the research and work to make it special. They traveled to Nanjing and did collaborative work with the Nanjing University women's choir there. They rehearsed together, presented concerts together, and shared world views with each other. You can read the blog the students wrote about this experience by clicking here. It's fun reading.
Wow- now that's a curtain call glow. Nancy is there holding the big bouquet of flowers
When the tour came to an end they gave a homecoming concert back at St. Mary's. Nancy worried that the choir would be jet lagged but I told her, I'm sure the adrenaline of a performance will see them through.
So Aidan (my fun-loving seven year old) and I took a mini road trip to Indiana. Aidan is all about road trips, even choir concert road trips with Dad, which you can read about (it is hilarious) here. I had two motivations for going- the first was the fact that the choir had taken my piece "Winter Solstice" for SSA/harp or piano, published by Roger Dean, on tour to China with them and they had added a solo dancer to the performance. I was quite intrigued by this presentation idea, and I was really looking forward to getting a chance to see this performance live. The second motivation was the fact that my new arrangement of the school song,"The Bells of St. Marys" (yes, that song, which you may know through the old Bing Crosby movie) would be performed at the end of the concert and I had yet to hear the new arrangement. In regard to this, I was very honored that Nancy entrusted me to write this piece. She wanted a new arrangement with piano, as they already had an a cappella version they had been doing for years. I felt this was a big task-- I needed to get this arrangement just right to do a famous school song honor. So I was looking forward, with crossed fingers, to finally hearing this sung by real people, not just as a Finale file playback.
So Aidan and I got to St. Mary's in plenty of time and we settled into our seats in the beautiful Loretto Chapel. Nancy and the singers entered and were greeted by very enthusiastic applause- it was obvious that the folks of St. Mary's were proud of them and glad to welcome them back.
The concert wound through some very nice repertoire by mostly living composers, including a very interesting Missa Brevis by Anna Cederberg, a Lux Aeterna by Michelle Roueche, and pieces by Ola Gjeillo and David Brunner. The Cederberg seemed to be the most interesting-- I sensed a nicely original "voice" and I would like to delve into this piece some more.
Then, after three very fresh and delightful Chinese folk songs the choir arrived at Winter Solstice. I settled into my seat just feeling very happy and curious about what would happen. The solo dancer, Jinqui Guan, a St. Mary's senior who is from China and will attend grad school at Harvard in the fall, took her place. The music started and the dancing was so beautiful and natural. Everything she did fit the poetry and my music so magically, that I found myself paying so much attention to the dancing that I was almost ignoring the music. But when I did refocus on the singing what I noticed was the most amazing phrase arc/line- Nancy and the choir had sung this piece enough times that they knew exactly how to nuance every phrase to its maximum expressiveness. I was just so happy to hear a piece of mine sung so artistically and in such a manner as to reflect, through beautiful phrasing, the beauty of the Southwest U.S. nature/winter solstice texts. I was moved deeply by the performance and even Aidan seemed really drawn in (you can't expect a seven year old to totally get all these things of course- he is pretty artistic but he's also about Pokemon and Yu-gi-o card games too).
The concert then finished up and I just had to thank everyone involved. I told Nancy that I thought it was the best St. Marys College Choir concert I had ever heard. I profusely thanked Miss Guan (it turns out she has training in traditional Chines dance, as well a ballet and modern), and also their amazing new pianist Allison Secaur. Allison rocked the entire night- whether it was subtlely nuanced music like Winter Solstice or great gobs of notes like in Stephen Paulus' "I cannot Dance, O Lord", which was also on the program. I hope Nancy can keep Allison in this position for a long time, she is one of the finest choral accompanists I have ever heard.
The singers were all happy-- I know they were tired but it was obvious that they were so proud of what they had accomplished in their travels to China and proud of their homecoming concert at St. Mary's. I was also really pleased that the dean and the president of the school were there wearing proud smiles and came and chatted with me. It's so wonderful to see their support of what Nancy has been doing at St. Mary's for the last twenty-six years. And I as well am proud to call Nancy a good friend and very proud of how she has shaped so many of the lives of her students. She has also been a true leader in the advance of women's choral music in the US over the last twenty-five years. She's been there from the start when this movement to elevate women's choral music to a high level of artistry began. And, as a composer, I truly appreciate how she and others like her have encouraged gifted composers to set quality poetry for this voicing.
Here is a video an audience member posted to youtube of the Winter Solstice performance- yes, I know a gentleman's head is partly in the frame! I believe the college will have an official video out soon.
Thanks for reading,
Paul
PS The "Bells of St. Mary's" arrangement was sung beautifully as well. Aaron Copland let me borrow a few very American harmonic ideas (think "Our Town") that help express emotions of love, fellowship and reminiscence. I am very happy with what I wrote for them- something that hopefully will touch the hearts of singers and alums.
Well the ACDA National Conference here in Chicago has just ended. It was an amazing experience and I will try to start blogging about it, plus blog about my experience teaching in Hong Kong the week previous to ACDA (wow, I am exhausted, but in a good way). There were so many fabulous new directions at ACDA, and one that really jumped out was the youth movement that was so obvious- but more on that later.
For those of you curious about a choir trip to China (or just looking for new ideas about planning international trips in general), Nancy Menk's St. Mary's College Women's Choir is in China right now, and Nancy and I discussed having the young women guest blog on my page. They've done far better- they have set up their own blog and they've been pretty busy on it. There's lots of good information and fun firsthand reflections there, so I encourage you to take a look at it. Right now I think they are just really getting into their singing,and one thing I think is truly great is that it is an exchange program with a Chinese women's choir. So these two choirs are singing for each other, trading ideas, and so on, This is so valuable and way better than just having ABC or XYZ tour company set up the usual rather random concert opportunities that you usually see. These young women are going to make lifelong friends with women their age who live across the globe. I'm also thrilled that they are doing my piece Winter Solstice and have added a solo dancer to the piece- I really want to see/hear this version!
I will repost the link every few days for those who may have forgotten to take a look right away, and it will be fun for us all to see the blogposts evolve over the next week.
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