Always Singing

Always Singing

March 6, 2020: The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia

March 8, 2020: St. Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

Sonja Bontrager, Lucas DeJesus, Conrad Erb, Julie Frey, Walker Gosrich, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Logan Laudenslager, Nathan Lofton, Cortlandt Matthews, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Rebecca Roy, Lizzy Schwartz, Andrew Shaw, Melinda Steffy, Kevin Vondrak, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Always Singing includes works by American composers and features the world premiere of Dale Trumbore’s “A Different Kind of Flight,” which is commissioned by and dedicated to the Chestnut Street Singers. The text is a compilation of various texts authored by current and former members of the Chestnut Street Singers. Taking inspiration from Dale Trumbore’s new piece, other works in Always Singing incorporate texts from a variety of sources. All mention singing in one way or another.

FINNEY: Spherical Madrigals
PUTS: “At Castle Wood” from To Touch The Sky
TRUMBORE: A Different Kind of Flight (world premiere)
WOLFE: Guard My Tongue
HAILSTORK: Nocturne
BARBER: Twelfth Night
BARBER: To be sung on the water
RODGERS (arr. AL-ZAND): My Romance
GERSHWIN (arr. OJEDA-GONZALEZ): Blah, Blah, Blah
WARLAND: Always Singing

On Turning Ten

Today we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Chestnut Street Singers. Whether you are with us for the first time or have seen every concert, we are thrilled to share this milestone with you. Happy birthday, Chestnuts!

Ten years ago, when Michael and Jen and I first gathered around some hand-me-down scores at the First Unitarian Church on—you guessed it—Chestnut Street, none of us were imagining this day. Starting a choir and asking people to sing with us for free—let alone listen to us, also for free!—felt impudent enough in this wonderfully musical city; we weren’t in a position to hope for longevity, too. In the years since, we have reflected on the irony of that upstart status: much of the ensemble’s greatest strength—its collaborative, inclusive music-making—grew out of our naivete. None of us had any previous experience developing the kind of vibrant, challenging choral community we wanted—nor had we managed a non-profit—so it didn’t occur to us to hew to the traditional artistic and administrative structures. And so we launched a grand improvisation: could this choir live up to our musical ambitions while also inviting the singers to voice their opinions, not just their notes? Could a roster of volunteer musicians also provide free conducting, accounting, design, catering—even program-writing? Could this choir be more than singing?

Every day for ten years, the answer has been yes. It has been shaped by more than sixty singers who have passed through our roster and refined through dozens of concerts and hundreds of individual works; through diction lessons from Icelandic to Xhosa; through whistling and throat-singing and a musical Monty Python quote. And through everything that we brought with us to this choir: marriages and divorces, new babies and ailing parents, ambition and uncertainty, cheese straws and apple cake and spare cough drops, and a ferocious willingness to engage, to learn, to try. Yes, this choir is more than singing. It is why we sing.

Given this legacy, our tenth anniversary season focuses naturally on musical collaborations of all kinds: perhaps you joined us in the fall for our Evensong collaboration with organist Michael Smith, and we hope to see you in June for our joint performances with the Glassbrook Vocal Ensemble, a traditionally directed choir based in New Jersey. But today’s program—the formal anniversary celebration—draws us inward, as we reckon with the ways in which this collaborative relationship challenges and enriches each of us. Just as the Chestnuts have a history of inclusivity, ranging from our traditional post-concert potlucks to our color-coded system for opining on program drafts, so too does this music bring together disparate voices—in song or plaint or prayer—all set by American composers exploring the very impact of those voices. 

The centerpiece of today’s program is a milestone of another sort: the world premiere of A Different Kind of Flight, commissioned from the award-winning composer Dale Trumbore in celebration of our tenth anniversary. We have been thrilled to work with Dale: a longtime choral singer herself, she had a keen appreciation for the significance of this ten-year achievement. And as delighted as we are to share her new work, we are especially grateful for Dale’s insight into the animating force behind the ensemble and, as a result, behind all of today’s program: she suggested that our own current and former singers write the text for her commission, centering again those voices that have propelled us, encouraged us, and asked us for more.

Yes, again, to all of us here and to all who have been part of these ten years. Yes, and thank you, and: more to come.

—Caroline Winschel, co-founder

Notes on the Program 

Spherical Madrigals (1947)

Ross Lee Finney was born in Minnesota in 1906 and educated at Carleton College and the University of Minnesota. Like many young composers of his generation, Finney spent time studying in Europe prior to World War II and was a pupil of the influential French composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger. After returning to the U.S., Finney embarked on a distinguished career in academia, holding positions at Harvard University, Smith College, and, from 1948 until his retirement in 1974, the University of Michigan. While Finney’s most lasting influence may have been as a teacher, he was also a highly regarded composer and the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Rome Prize, and membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

Spherical Madrigals, presented in seven movements, sets texts by English metaphysical poets. Finney’s settings explore the different metaphorical meanings—literal, figurative, terrestrial, and astronomical—that can be assigned to circles, spheres, and orbs. Finney deepens the

musical connection to these shapes by incorporating musical devices into each movement that are themselves circular. Among these devices are canon, where two or more parts sing the same melodic line but are displaced from each other in time, and mirroring, in which two parts move in opposite directions while staying rhythmically together.

At Castle Wood (2012)

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his opera Silent Night, Kevin Puts has been hailed as one of the most important composers of his generation. “At Castle Wood” lies at the center of Puts’s multi-movement choral cycle, To Touch the Sky, written for Austin-based choir Conspirare. Puts describes the work’s inception from a discussion with Conspirare’s conductor, Craig Hella Johnson, who considered the Christian Magnificat and other similar texts to be a potential basis for a large-scale choral work. Building upon the longstanding compositional tradition since late antiquity of setting this Marian profession of faith in choral music, To Touch the Sky exclusively sets texts written by women, including Emily Brontë, Mother Teresa, and Hildegard of Bingen.

The piece starts from a place of emptiness—the hollow hum of an open fifth. With a steady and strict poetic meter, the music unfolds and expounds Brontë’s verse, from desolate beginnings through the dreariness of agony, grief, and despair. In the final stretch of poetry, this depressed outlook turns to an emotional plea, when the “fear of this despair” succumbs to the “mate of care.” For the first time in the composition, Puts breaks the rigid poetic flow and repeats a line of text. By omitting the first half of the line (“no wish to”) in each repetition, the meaning of the verse is radically changed. Over the span of a minute, the new mantra is repeated; a deep, yearning call to “keep my soul below.” 

Interestingly, Puts’s setting omits the last line of Brontë’s poem. In programming this concert, we took this omission as an opportunity to link this setting with the subsequent text. Where “At Castle Wood” rests after a grief-ridden journey, Dale Trumbore’s work picks up, reminding us that we are not alone.

WORLD PREMIERE
A Different Kind of Flight (2019)

commissioned by and dedicated to the Chestnut Street Singers

Although it is fairly common for choral ensembles to present programs about music, our early conversations about the commission with Dale Trumbore focused on the paucity of art about music-making. Commemoration our tenth anniversary seemed to call for a celebration not just of the milestone and its animating art bit also of all the behind-the-scenes process—the collaboration, the uncertainty, the love —that fueled this achievement. At Dale’s suggestion, current and former members of the choir contributed texts reflecting on their experiences with the Chestnut Street Singers; Dale then refined the compilation into a multi-part libretto. The distinct voices within the text underpin discrete musical themes: listen for melodies to recur and reshape as the narrative arc unfurls.

The highlight of our tenth anniversary season, A Different Kind of Flight is a special piece to our ensemble not just because of the vision and resources necessary to bring about its commission and premiere but also because it speaks to the heart of why we do what we do. In our own words, the mission of our singing is not just described but enacted. The distance between the authors of the text and the agents of its delivery is reduced to its most minimum. We give these words from the heart because they are our own. And though this concert falls on a weekend, for months now we have been coming together on Mondays to share in this song.

The world is chaos.
There seems to be more to fight against
and less to be proud of.

So much life happens,
and yet the singing continues.
We allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
It is not easy.

And yet, this is singing of the human condition:
Of loss. Of home, or of loss of home.
Of searching, with greater and lesser success.
Of love, in its many forms.

We are not alone.*

I could feel this comfort I haven’t felt
in a long time,
a real sense of belonging.**

I’m a writer, a coworker, a sometimes painter,
A friend, a colleague, a boss, a neighbor.
But thanks to Mondays, I’m a singer.
On Mondays, I’m a singer first.

I plan dinners, wash dishes, do laundry;
Change diapers, wipe tears, read stories;
Call clients, make changes, meet deadlines.
Manage money, manage time, manage feelings,
Misplace a sock, forget the milk, lose my patience.

But thanks to Mondays, I misplace my worries,
I forget my stress.
I may lose my place.
I may miss a note, a beat, or an entrance.

But thanks to Mondays, I’m a singer.
On Mondays, I’m a singer first.***

I could feel this comfort I haven’t felt
in a long time,
a real sense of belonging.**

Dear little one,

Here is what we know: Scientists say singing in a choir is good for the brain, like crossword puzzles and meditation.

In all these years, I never asked your mother why she wanted a choir. I stood close enough that we breathed the same sleeve of air, close enough that I could hear the humming of her thoughts. It was so much more than what the scientists say!

I think a choir is more like flying trapeze than crosswords. We time our flight against the limits of breath and the relief of consonance. We still catch you every time you launch; I’m learning again to trust my own flight.^

There was a nest
we each had left,
not exactly fledglings,
but eager
for some different kind of flight.

I don’t know who was first —
we opened our mouths
to tell our stories,
sketching out worlds between worlds,
remaking old patterns we learned,
inventing new nests we would build,
healing our bones with the songs we sang
Together.

More voices joined—
others, too, who had fallen
or jumped
or wished
or despaired
to tell a new story
to rejoice in the discovery of hope.^^
I could feel this comfort I haven’t felt
in a long time.
And though I move and travel,
I would lay down most anything
to feel this way again.**

—Texts that form the libretto were written by the following current and former members of the Chestnut Street Singers:

*Jen Hayman, Reflections on Rumi

**Zachary Sigafoes, from Belonging

***Rebekah Reddi, from Thanks to Mondays

^Caroline Winschel, from Dear Simon

^^Sonja Bontrager, from Two Bluebirds

Guard my tongue (2009)

A founding member of New York’s celebrated music collective Bang On A Can, Julia Wolfe has carved out a place in contemporary concert music with works that recharge classical forms through patterns of minimalism and the energy of rock music. In the past decade, her vocal works in particular have earned recognition for their documentation of labor rights, notably the 2015 Pulitzer Prize–winning oratorio Anthracite Fields about Pennsylvania coal miners. “Guard my tongue” takes as its text a reading of Psalm 34. With patience, a small amount of material—one singular sentence of the psalm—is layered and looped until it is delivered in full. At its core, the text speaks of the potential power of one’s voice, and how we choose to employ that power.

Nocturne (1984)

With “Nocturne,” the second of Adolphus Hailstork’s Five Short Choral Works, we turn our voices to expressions of devotion rooted in the natural world. “Nocturne” illuminates Reverend Jim Curtis’s text through an opening aleatoric section that evokes the thick warm air of summer evenings and the halo of insects chirping in the night sky. The sopranos enter with expressive chant-like melodies hovering over the sonic landscape of the lower voices. As the piece unfolds, the poem reveals itself to be a love song in a homophonic middle passage, before returning to a final aleatoric section with soprano solo.

Twelfth Night (1968)

We follow Hailstork with two very different visions of devotion: “Twelfth Night” and “To Be Sung On The Water” were among Samuel Barber’s last compositions. Following poor critical reception of his 1966 opera, Antony and Cleopatra, which was commissioned to celebrate the opening of the newly built Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center, Barber fell into a depression and composed little during the ensuing years. The title of “Twelfth Night” (Opus 42, no. 1) refers to the eve of Epiphany and recounts the arduous journey of the biblical wise men, with a comparison of the birth of Christ to the rebirth of nature in springtime. The poem’s dark themes and hope for renewal may reflect Barber’s own thinking during a particularly low point in his professional career.

To Be Sung On The Water (1968)

“To Be Sung On The Water” (Opus 42, no. 2) features poetry by American poet laureate Louise Bogan. We have less clarity here than in “Twelfth Night”: rather than the sure—if grueling—approach of spring and salvation, Bogan’s text offers us a more ephemeral moment, guaranteed to pass us by. Barber paints the movement of oars through the water with a slow, lapping motive sustained throughout the piece, creating a peaceful backdrop to the expansive melodic lines with which it is contrasted. These musical ideas are traded between the upper and lower voices, representing the two characters whose vows have been lost to the night and the waves.

My Romance (1935)

As Trumbore and Wolfe remind us, the variation in our voices can carry great power and meaning. This gives us a good excuse to stretch the bounds of our traditional choral canon a bit, moving all the way from Finney’s madrigals to some of the twentienth century’s greatest jazz tunes. We begin with “My Romance,” by the famed Richard Rodgers, born into a wealthy Jewish family in New York City in 1902. Rodgers was among the most successful musical theater composers of the twentieth century, and his collaborations with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II produced such classics of the genre as Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. “My Romance” was written with Lorenz Hart for the 1935 musical Jumbo. Though Jumbo was not as successful as other shows composed by Rodgers, “My Romance” has become a standard in the world of jazz and pop music. It has been recorded by a wide range of musicians, from Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans to Mario Lanza and James Taylor.

Blah, Blah, Blah (1931)

George Gershwin was among the first “crossover” artists in American music, a composer whose early successes in popular music paved the way for later acceptance by the classical music establishment. Despite his tragically short life, Gershwin’s body of work has profoundly influenced music in the U.S. While Gershwin is known for iconic songs like “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” and “Summertime,” we’ve opted to program a lesser-known gem. “Blah, Blah, Blah” was written in 1931 with Gershwin’s lyricist brother, Ira, for the ultimately abandoned musical East is West.  The piece was later incorporated into the 2012 Broadway production of Nice Work If You Can Get It, a compilation of works by George and Ira Gershwin. “Blah, Blah, Blah” is a not-too-subtle sendup of the formulaic popular songs written by such contemporaries as Cole Porter—and perhaps also a cheeky reframing of all our heartfelt anniversary writings!

Always Singing (2009)

We close our program with American composer and conductor Dale Warland’s evocative “Always Singing.” The text is a paraphrased quote from Ronald Blythe’s 1969 bestseller, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village, an account of the inhabitants of East Suffolk (about 90 miles north of London) in the 1960’s, featuring interviews with townspeople. Although life was difficult for 85-year-old retired farmer Fred Mitchell, he reflects upon the joy he gleaned from the presence of singing throughout his life. Warland, who was himself raised on a farm in rural Iowa, illuminates Mitchell’s reminiscences through rich sonorities and poignant musical vignettes that reflect on the power of singing to build community. Listen closely for the text, “O God our help in ages past,” in the lower voices, a nod to the chime of the Akenfield chapel bells.