Choralicious!

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can [help] make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic, common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future, and we are all mortal.“

These words were spoken by President John. F. Kennedy as part of his commencement address at American University in 1963. And they were the inspiration for a moving choral anthem, Common Link, composed by Mark Carlson.

Mark gave us a little insight about setting this powerful text:

At first, it was an enormous challenge to set words that are not intentionally poetic—though undeniably beautiful and profound. But as the compositional process unfolded, I felt immensely honored to be setting these words. In fact, it was kind of overwhelming to set words of such depth, some 40 years after they were spoken, and I remain humbled by the experience.

And what really got me—and still gets me nine years after writing this music—is the line, “and we are all mortal.” In part, it was the realization that Kennedy was saying, “Why are we fighting each other? We’re all going to die, anyway!” But even more, it was the realization that mortality, much as we want to fight it, is a gift. No matter how young or how old we die, we all have a finite amount of time on this small planet. Why not use every moment of that finite time to do whatever we can to make this small planet a more beautiful, a more accepting place.

Common Link was commissioned by the Maine Gay Men’s Chorus (directed by Miguel Felipe) as part of their 10th anniversary celebration. It was originally composed for TTBB, violin and piano, but has recently also been voiced for SATB, violin and piano as well. (Click on the links to see a partial PDF score for each voicing.)

This recording is the premiere performance by the Maine Gay Men’s Chorus, conducted by Miguel Felipe, in June, 2002.

The Huntington Men’s Chorus
www.huntingtonmenschorus.com
Thomas W. Jones, Conductor

Date/Time: Saturday, December 4, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Location: Huntington High School Auditorium, Huntington, NY

Featuring: If Not at Christmas (Music by Scott Henderson, Lyrics by William MacDuff)

Quarryland Men’s Chorus
www.quarryland.org
Barry Magee, Artistic Director

Date/Time: Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.
Location: First United Church, Bloomington, IN

Featuring: what matters (song by Randi Driscoll, arranged by Kevin Robison)
Enjoy Your Life (Music by Diane Benjamin, Lyrics by Barbara McAffee and D. Benjamin)
The Davey Dinckle Song (Song by Rick Crom, arranged by Steve Milloy)

Special note from Barry Magee: “Using the title of Randi Driscoll’s song as a prompt, I ask the men of the chorus to tell me what matters in their lives. Based on those responses I developed seven themes: music, loving community, enjoying life, holidays, mentoring and learning, faith, and friends. From this I choose two or three songs for each theme. Chorus members will read selections of what they wrote to introduce each theme. It fits the spirit of the holidays but it doesn’t limit use to just doing holiday music. “

Des Moines Diversity Chorus
www.desmoinesdiversitychorus.org
Julie Murphy, Artistic Director

Date/Time: Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Grace Lutheran Church, Des Moines, IA

Date/Time: Monday, December 13, 2010 at 6:30 p.m.
Location: Wesley Acres Retirement Center, Des Moines, IA

Featuring: Winter Solstice Moon (Music and words by David Frank Long)
A New December (Music and words by David Frank Long)

Special note from Julie Murphy: “The name of our concert is ‘Season of Light.’ Music is drawn from diverse sources using texts that cross religious and ethnic boundaries. As the darkness of winter enfolds us, we sing of light, the symbol of peace, love, faith and joy, in hope that this light will continue to brighten our world.”

New Wave Singers of Baltimore
www.newwavesingers.org
Adam Koch, Artistic Director

Date/Time: Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Location: Bolton Street Synagogue, Baltimore, MD

Featuring: Christmas Brunch (Music by Dean X. Johnson, Lyrics by Craig Sturgis)
Coming Out on Christmas (Music by Dean X. Johnson, Lyrics by Craig Sturgis)

Special note: The New Wave Singers are celebrating their 25th anniversary year! They were founded in 1985 and continue to thrive and grow.

Aurora Chorus
www.aurorachorus.org
Joan Szymko, Artistic Director

Date/Time: Saturday, December 18, 2010 at 7:30 p.m.
Date/Time: Sunday, December 19, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.
Location: Lincoln Hall Auditorium, PSU campus, Portland, OR
Guest Artist: Claudia Schmidt

Featuring: Coming Out on Christmas (Music by Dean X. Johnson, Lyrics by Craig Sturgis)

UUCC of Washington County Choir
www.uuccwc.org
Allison Wilski, Music Director

Date/Time: Friday, December 24, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Hillsboro, OR

Featuring Elizabeth Norton’s arrangement of All Hayle to the Days

Are you in a chorus that will be performing music published by Yelton Rhodes on an upcoming concert? Please let us know about it (david@yrmusic.com) and we’ll promote your concert on Choralicious as well as on our Facebook page!

(Today’s entry is the continuation of YRM’s Dale Trumbore’s recent interview with composer Kenneth Fuchs.)

Yelton Rhodes Music: Do you have any suggestions or advice for choirs approaching your work for the first time?

Kenneth Fuchs: I believe that my music is in service to the words at all times. Understanding the text first is of paramount importance.

YRM: How do you go about finding texts to set? Is there a particular poet or poets whose work you enjoy setting?

KF: I love the prose and poetry of American writers. I read a lot and I am always on the lookout for texts that interest me. I feel especially close to the New England poets, but I am also interested in the works of American dramatists and novelists; I feel fortunate to have set the words of writers as diverse as Don DeLillo, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, John Updike, and Lanford Wilson. Composers must never set a text that is not in the public domain without the permission of the author first!

YRM: Do you have any advice for other composers interested in having their works published by YRM?

KF: Choose your words carefully and set them well. Attention to prosody and proper word setting is essential. Few things show off a composer’s inexperience faster than words that do not sit properly on the music! Also, recordings of good performances are extremely helpful in placing a work with a publisher.

YRM: What do you enjoy about being published by and working with YRM?

KF: I admire Roger Bourland’s bold vision for YRM. He publishes a wide variety of works that often express strong points of view about social and political concerns. I consider it a privilege to have my choral works published by YRM!

Yelton Rhodes Music considers it a privilege to publish so many of Kenneth Fuch’s beautifully-written choral pieces!

Please visit his webpage for more information about his work: www.kennethfuchs.com.

YRM’s Dale Trumbore interviewed Kenneth Fuchs for this featured artist segment on our blog (the first one we’ve done, and there will be more to follow!).

Fuchs has written for orchestra, band, chorus, jazz ensemble, and various chamber ensembles. Naxos has released two recordings of his music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with conductor JoAnn Falletta and producer Michael Fine (An American Place/Eventide/Out of the Dark and Canticle to the Sun/United Artists). In October 2001, Albany Records released Kenneth Fuchs: String Quartets 2, 3, 4 (Troy 480), performed by the American String Quartet. Mr. Fuchs currently serves as professor of music composition at the University of Connecticut.

Yelton Rhodes Music publishes several of his works including In the Clearing, six Robert Frost poem settings (Devotion, Fireflies in the Garden, Hannibal, Nothing Gold Can Stay, October and Stars), and Immigrants Still, a setting of the fifth canto from On Freedom’s Ground by Richard Wilbur, written as a memorial to those who died on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center in New York City.

(Please click on the links to view the items in our catalog and to listen to recordings of each work.)
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Yelton Rhodes Music: What is your general composition process like?

Kenneth Fuchs: When I compose for voice, I always start with the text. I know immediately if I should set a poem or prose piece to music, because I hear the music as I read the words. Over the course of my career as a composer, I have set everything from tiny four-line poems to hour-long one-act plays. Once I have completely absorbed a text, I make musical sketches in relation to the words as I perceive them. Eventually I have enough sketches to start composing the piece, usually from the beginning of the text.

YRM: What is your musical background? How does that come into play in your own writing?

KF: I started singing in church choirs and school choruses when I was ten years old. The experience of singing in an ensemble made a lasting impression on me because I was hearing and singing the music from the inside out. For me, composition has always been a vocal utterance. I received my undergraduate degree in composition from the University of Miami, where I studied for four years with the noted band composer Alfred Reed. I received graduate degrees from the Juilliard School, where for nine years my principal teachers were David Diamond and Vincent Persichetti. The composition faculty also included Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions. Peter Mennin was the president of the School. Quite a heady atmosphere for any composer!

YRM: What is your favorite piece published with Yelton Rhodes Music? What makes this your favorite piece?

KF: I am especially proud of Immigrants Still. It is based on the fifth canto of Richard Wilbur’s epic bicentennial poem “On Freedom’s Ground.” I first became acquainted with the poem when I heard the New York Philharmonic perform William Schuman’s cantata based upon this text in the mid-1980s. The poem’s powerful observations about the birth and progress of our nation over 200 years moved me very deeply and have stayed with me ever since. I had been seeking to compose an appropriate musical response to the events that befell our nation on September 11, 2001. When I received a commission from the Oklahoma Choral Director’s Association to compose a work for the 2005 All-OMEA Honors Chorus, Richard Wilbur’s prophetic words about the majesty of New York harbor and the immigrant experience seemed exactly right. The poem is very moving, and I hope many choruses will take up the piece for the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Yup… 2011. It will be here before you know it! Will your chorus be singing in acknowledgment and celebration of the new year?

Choral repertoire available for the topic of “new year” is unfortunately not that big at all. So, Yelton Rhodes was delighted to publish Karlan Judd’s arrangement of the traditional tune “Auld Lang Syne” which features original lyrics by Glenn Geller. The piece is titled This Time Next Year, for solo, SATB and piano.

Karlan gives the following insight:

I don’t remember exactly what it was that inspired Glenn and I to write this song, but as I listen to it now I’m glad we did and it brings up some new feelings. With everything that is going on in the gay rights movement along with all of the recent horrible news about teenage suicides and gay-related attacks, it is easy to be angry about everything. It is easy to be angry at my family for their strong-held religious beliefs that call my lifestyle perverted, angry at politicians for not being brave enough to stand up for equality for all, angry at groups that seem to make it their mission to destroy us.

But, it is much much MUCH more important to remember the love that we share with friends and family, and to remember our desire to reach out to our fellow women and men and create relationships that bring us joy. I will not rid my heart of OUTRAGE at the mistreatment of myself or others. However, there is still love between me and my family, me and my friends on the right wing of politics, and hopefully between me and the people I meet every day. This song reminded me of the importance of cultivating this love within myself. I hope it can do the same thing for you and your chorus and maybe even your audience!

Currently the piece is only available for SATB voicing, but if you’re genuinely interested in having a men’s or women’s chorus perform it… leave a comment and we’ll try to convince Karlan to prepare an arrangement for TTBB or SSAA. Click on the links to view the first few pages and the last couple of pages of score.

This Time Next Year was premiered by the West Coast Singers. Here’s their performance (complete with a baby in the audience who decided to join the soloist) :

It’s the first full week of October! Most choruses have already started their fall rehearsal season, many in anticipation of an upcoming holiday concert this December. Some of those choruses may still be figuring out their program… and that’s where this blog tends to come in handy!

YRM put out holiday samplers earlier this summer featuring all of our newest publications. This blog can go even further, however, in giving you a little additional insight to some of those pieces.

To start… I’d like to introduce you to a new YRM writer, Michael Davis, and his recently published Peace In Your Heart (A Holiday Carol). This vibrant, up-tempo work has a touch of jazz attitude, and offers a positive message for the holiday season.

Michael shared the following thoughts about composing this piece:

I wrote Peace In Your Heart for the 2008 holiday carol competition sponsored by the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus. The theme was “peace” and I didn’t want to write the slow, pretty song with a flute solo that I imagined people would expect from me (I’m a flutist, LOL). I thought that there would already plenty of those kinds of songs on the program and that something with a little more attitude and bite would have a better chance of being selected.

My plan worked. It won, and they sang it more beautifully than I could ever imagine. Some people even told me it was their favorite song on the program (no small compliment with some of the master works the chorus sang on that concert).

I wanted to convey the message that embracing diversity could be a path to inner peace, but I didn’t want to preach. I think I achieved that by asking questions instead of issuing statements. Hopefully, I wasn’t too subtle. Above all I wanted to write a fun song. If it doesn’t make people move and smile, then I’d be very disappointed.

By the way, it looks a lot harder than it actually is because of the jazz/blues influence. One guy in the chorus told me it “scared” him when he first saw it, but the words flow with the music very well and when he figured it out it was a piece of cake.

I hope to see a video one day with lots of diversity and hilarious costumes.

Peace In Your Heart (A Holiday Carol) is available in both SATB and TTBB voicings (click on the links to check out the first and last few pages of each score as PDFs).

Listen to Michael Davis‘ Peace In Your Heart (A Holiday Carol) as performed by the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus:

Yelton Rhodes Music is fortunate to welcome two bright, young and talented individuals to our staff!

NILS PIETER DE MOL VAN OTTERLOO

If you’ve ordered music recently from YRM, you’ve likely already been in touch with Nils. He’s charged with processing music requests and handling customer correspondence. He also helps to keep the office in order, and assists the publisher with special projects.

Nils is originally from Marblehead, Massachusetts and studied music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He also pursued additional music studies at Bates College in Maine and at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands. As a composer he likes to experiment with various electronic mediums, and has produced a number of ambient/alternative tracks on which he performed as a vocalist, guitarist and bassist. Nils is also a part-time photographer and is always searching for creative techniques and methods for his photographic endeavors.

He claims to have played field hockey in high school… with the girls. We’ll just have to trust him on that.

Examples of Nils’ music may be heard at http://myspace.com/otterbop.
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DALE TRUMBORE

Dale joins the YRM team as a score editor (specializing in Sibelius digital notation) and will soon be a contributing writer/blogger here at Choralicious.com as well.

She’s a native of Chatham, New Jersey, and just recently moved to Los Angeles to pursue her master’s degree in Music Composition at the University of Southern California. Along with her graduate studies, Dale keeps active composing a variety of concert works covering the spectrum from choral to instrumental. Her string quartet “How it will go” was premiered last fall by the Kronos Quartet, and she’s currently completing a commission for the Orange County Women’s Chorus to be performed this May. In addition to composing, Dale is an accomplished pianist and choral singer (she’s been performing this past year as a soprano in the USC Chamber Singers).

Dale may apparently live and breathe music, but she also holds a black belt in karate!

A sampling of Dale’s compositions may be heard at http://myspace.com/daletrumbore.

Children, Go Where I Send Thee
(Trad. Spiritual adapted and arranged by Steve Milloy)
YR3505v1 score excerpt

Christmas Is Delicious
(Debbie Greig/Scott Henderson)
YR1101v1 score excerpt

The Virgin’s Slumber Song
(Max Reger/Arranged by Larry Moore)
YR3130P score excerpt

Procesión jibara
(Puerto Rican Christmas Carol adapted and arranged by Edgar Colón-Hernández)
YR1C11 score excerpt

Santa, Won’t You Please Come Back
(John Pingree/Neal Richardson)
YR3R11 score excerpt

With the bright sunny sky overhead and the heat of July permeating throughout the city of Los Angeles, I’m contemplating Christmas. Many choruses are beginning to plan their upcoming holiday concert now, so I decided to feature a newly published work by a new YRM writer, Seattle-based David Hahn. Tirlee! Tirlo! is a jubilant Christmas carol for mixed chorus a cappella. The text is from 15th century England, and the music is original. This piece is a wonderful example of how contemporary musical settings can bring such unique layers of meaning and expression to centuries-old texts.

When asked for some special insights about the piece, Hahn shared the following words:

The image of the three Kings visiting the manger and delivering their rich gifts is well represented in text and iconography. Tirlee! Tirlo! shows what the lowly shepherds had to offer the new-born Christ child: the spirited sounds of their pipes. The lyrics depict the joy which the shepherds felt as they witnessed the happy events and signs surrounding the birth of Christ. This is a song of celebration and the brief chorus following each verse mimes the pipes of the merry shepherds as they mark the day.

I am a scholar of renaissance and medieval music and find the most inspired vocal music–both sacred and secular–from those periods of music history. Consequently, for the Christmas carol Tirlee! Tirlo!, I set a text from a 15th-century England found in Bodleian Library at Oxford University. I set it in a way that the music would be compelling and fun to sing while remaining accessible for amateurs.

To see how the piece begins and ends, just click on the links to download score excerpts as PDFs.

Listen to David Hahn’s Tirlee! Tirlo!:

When YRM’s submission review committee first looked at Randi Grundahl Rexroth’s My True Love Hath My Heart… we knew we had to publish it! The piece is a lovely and playful madrigal (a cappella) with a charming text written by Sir Philip Sydney, one of the Elizabethan Age’s most prominent figures.

What makes the way that Rexroth adapted the text particularly special is its ability to accommodate a variety of gender references. My True Love Hath My Heart is composed for either women’s or men’s chorus (download the first three pages of each score as a PDF by clicking on the links), with each voicing able to use either “his” or “her” pronouns. This flexibility allows a chorus to express themselves precisely as they’d like!

Randi shares the following story about the inspiration for the piece:

“I needed to give my boyfriend a Christmas gift, but I was not able to buy him much. After speaking with my mother, who is a composer herself, she sent me the Philip Sydney text. She had tried to set herself, but had come up short. I remember her saying “I wanted to compose a contemporary madrigal, but I just couldn’t hear it”. As soon as I received the words I heard this piece.

I wrote the song as a solo and recorded it as my gift. A month later, I arranged the piece to be an SSAA arrangement that would be used in our wedding. The choir that sang My True Love Hath My Heart was made up of students from the schools where we teach and was touted as a highlight of the ceremony.”

Randi Grundahl Rexroth’s My True Love Hath My Heart: