The East Bay Singers: On the Journey Home

East Bay Singers

Buddy James, conductor

Omri Shimron, piano

Soprano  Jimi Requa Ashton Cuevas +Kirsten Bradford +Lauren Cadotte Jingwei Cai Honey Dwyer +Nola Moore Alto Nataly Aguilar Nathalie Briseño Dalena Hall Danielle Lacy Yadira Martinez Elizabeth Sanchez Navarro Tenor  Chaleiyb Piggee Noah Ragasa Zenji Amihan Darius Bass  Benjamin Albright Damian Larios-Jauregui +David Mao Chris Nauman +Gustavo Reyes + Denotes member of the A Cappella Ensemble

Dr. David Stein Award for Choral Excellence

Award presented to the graduating senior who has most greatly contributed to the musical and professional achievements of the CSUEB choral program.  

• 2025 - 26 – ???
• 2024 - 25 – Paco Wong
• 2023 - 24 – Paige Swarts
• 2022 - 23 – Katherine Geronimo
• 2021 - 22 – Daniella Urban
• 2020 - 21 – No award given (pandemic)
• 2019 - 20 – Georgia Friend
• 2018 - 19 – Sarah Cordes
• 2017 - 18 – Toran Davenport
• 2016 - 17 – Allison Martin-McBee
• 2015 - 16 – Andrea Maciel
• 2014 - 15 – Owen McInnis
• 2013 - 14 – Jennifer Thorsen
• 2012 - 13 – Hannah Newell
• 2011 - 12 – Kira Sullivan
• 2010 - 11 – Dina Marawala
• 2009 - 10 – Lieven Smart
• 2008 - 09 – Jessica Alvarez
• 2007 - 08 – David Belles
• 2006 - 07 – Mary Low

PROGRAM NOTES

ON THE JOURNEY HOME A Musical Path through Longing, Landscape, and Belonging Tonight's program traces a deeply human experience: the search for home. Not simply a place, but a feeling of belonging, rootedness, and return. Through music spanning five centuries and six countries, the East Bay Singers invite you on a journey that moves through longing, landscape, memory, and ultimately, hope. I. THE SOUL AWAKENS

We open with Abbie Betinis's Journey Home, a contemporary work that sets the tone for the evening with warmth and narrative immediacy. Betinis is known for music that speaks directly to the heart, and this piece establishes the emotional compass for everything that follows. William Byrd's I Have Longed for Thy Saving Health reminds us that longing is not new. One of the great masters of the Renaissance, Byrd wrote with a depth of feeling that transcends his era. This motet draws from the Psalms, giving voice to a yearning that is both intensely personal and universally human. The Nightingale offers a moment of lyrical beauty, the bird long a symbol of longing and song itself, here rendered with delicacy and expressive freedom. We close this section with Johannes Brahms's O Schöne Nacht (O Beautiful Night), a shimmering nocturne for chorus. Brahms's gift for rich harmonic color is on full display here, painting a landscape of quiet wonder under the night sky. II. VOICES OF LAND AND TRADITION Home is also rooted in culture, and this section honors the musical traditions that carry identity across generations and continents. Isabella Colbran's Povero cor tu palpiti brings a rare and welcome voice to the program. Colbran (1785-1845) was one of the great sopranos of the early 19th century and a gifted composer whose works deserve far greater recognition than they have historically received. This Spanish-Italian song is filled with passion and elegance. Tres Cantos Nativos brings the rhythmic vitality and harmonic richness of Brazil to the concert hall. Arranger Marcos Leite has crafted a setting that is at once authentic and exhilarating, rooted in indigenous musical traditions. Son de Camaguey takes us to Cuba with irresistible energy. Stephen Hatfield's arrangement captures the lively spirit of the Cuban son tradition, a music born from the meeting of African and Spanish cultures. A Peach Blossom Song offers a moment of quiet beauty drawn from the Chinese musical tradition, a gentle reminder that the longing for home takes many forms across cultures. III. MODERN LONGING Home also lives in memory and popular imagination, and this section explores longing through the lens of American popular music. The Chords' Sh-Boom (1954) was one of the first doo-wop songs to cross over to mainstream audiences, a buoyant, playful vision of a dreamlike life. Bastille's Pompeii brings the journey into the 21st century, its driving energy and haunting imagery asking what remains when everything has changed. Both are performed by the CSUEB A Cappella Ensemble. From The Phantom of the Opera, Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again is among Andrew Lloyd Webber's most searching songs, a young woman reaching across loss toward someone irreplaceable. IV. THE PROMISE OF HOME We close with music that points toward arrival. Jerusalem, drawn from the traditional repertoire, has long served as a song of spiritual aspiration, a community united in the hope of reaching something beyond the horizon. City Called Heaven, arranged by Josephine Poelinitz, is a profound African American spiritual that transforms personal sorrow into collective transcendence. Its simple, soaring melody carries the weight of history and the lightness of hope in equal measure. Shawn Kirchner's I'll Be on My Way brings the evening to a close with characteristic grace. Kirchner writes music that feels both rooted and reaching, and this piece sends the audience and the singers alike forward, on the road, with courage and with song. Thank you for joining us tonight. The journey continues. Welcome home.

As members of the Cal State East Bay community on the Hayward campus, we acknowledge that we are guests on the unceded land of the First People of this region, the present-day Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area (formerly Verona Band of Alameda County). We support the sovereignty of this Chochenyo-Ohlone-speaking tribal group and other indigenous peoples. This acknowledgment was created by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe with the support of the CSUEB Indigenous Acknowledgement Collective and is a living document.