Tuesday, February 17
2:30 p.m.
Florence Kopleff Recital Hall
Tenor-Bass Choir
Dr. Patrick K. Freer, conductor Aaron Cummings, graduate conductor Logan Kropp, graduate conductor Josue Valdez, piano
In Meeting We Are Blessed
Troy Robertson (b. 1978)
Aaron Cummings, conductor
Text: R Gatsnahos, after Donne We are met together and in meeting we are blessed. Peace in coming and in going, peace in labor and in rest. Hod on, dear sister! Hold on to me. You're not alone and you never more will be. I will be with you, and I will carry you with me. Friendship endures, and surely we will prove it's ourselves, but our bodies that move. Hold on, dear brother! Hold on to me.
Arirang (excerpt)
arr. Hyo-Won Woo (b. 1974)
Logan Kropp, conductor
Text and Translation You are going over Arirang hill. My love, you are leaving me. Your feet will be sore before you go ten.
About the Arranger
One of Korea's most prominent composers, Hyo-Won Woo has emerged as a formidable voice in choral music. Her groundbreaking works blend traditional Korean musical elements and Western technique, and include settings of the Latin text, playful spatial music, and arrangements examining wordless human encounters. Ms. Woo is currently composer-in-residence with the National Chorus in South Korea. She was composer-in-residence with the Seoul Ladies' Singers since 1996, and with the Incheon City Chorale, led by Hak-Won Yoon, from 1999-2014. For over twenty years, the collaboration between Ms. Woo and Mr. Yoon has forged a new path for choral music in Korea. Ms. Woo's works are highly sought after worldwide and have been critically acclaimed at the 2009 ACDA National Conference, Polyfolia in France, and the IFCM choral symposium. Ms. Woo is on faculty at the Chorus Center Academy in Seoul and has taught choral compositions at various universities in Korea and was most recently a visiting fellow at the University of Michigan. Her works are published by Walton Inc. and Hal Leonard in the United States and Seoul Chorus Center in South Korea.
There is a Meeting Here Tonight
arr. Bob Gibson (b. 1989)
Text: Don MacDonald There is a meeting here tonight! Well, there's a meeting here tonight, There's a meeting here tonight, I can tell by your friendly face there's a meeting here tonight. Well I went down in the valley one day, met old Satan on my way, What do you reckon old Satan did say He said, "Turn back, young man you're too young to pray." Satan got mad and I am glad, Lost a soul he thought he had. Satan is a liar and a conjuror too, You better watch out brother he'll conjure you. Well, there's a meeting here tonight, There's a meeting here tonight, I can tell by your friendly face there's a meeting here tonight.
ENSEMBLE
Marc-Alexandre Barbe Jehl’n Bentley Orlando Bolanos Aaron Cummings Noah Frett Shaun Gibbons Edward Keener Logan Kropp Benjamin Latting Skyler Luong Mauricio Maurin Aiden McDonald Connor Parsons Jayden Perez
TREBLE CHOIR
Prof. Meghan Stoll, conductor Kelly Grba, graduate conductor Carolyn Mielke, graduate conductor Madison Tiegreen, graduate conductor Nick Johns-Cooper, piano
Stars In Your Bones
Joan Szymko | B. 1957
Kelly Grba, conductor
"Stars In Your Bones" was composed as a gift to Aurora Chorus to celebrate the ensemble as "A Place Where You Belong", the theme of its 25th Anniversary Season (2016-17).The opening chords and exuberant opening unison suggests the “big bang”— the singular explosion theorized by astronomers as the origin of our expanding universe. (black note clusters at M.1-6 and at M.64-69 are to be played with forearm and side of hand). The piano ostinato that follows beginning at M.7 consists of a 5-note 16th-note pattern over a steady quarter-note 5/4 pulse, lending an unstable, fluctuating quality to the the lyrics: “Earth changes…” As the underlying rhythm in the accompaniment settles, the lyrical quality of the setting takes hold, building toward a galvanizing, uplifting expression of “belonging.” Drawn to Alla Bozarth’s imagery and to her universal expressions of spirituality, this is the third prose poem by Bozarth set by the composer.
Poem by Alla Renée Bozarth (b. 1947) The small plot of ground on which you were born cannot be expected to stay forever the same. Earth changes, and home becomes different places. You took flesh from clay but the clay did not come from just one place. To feel alive, important, and safe, know your own waters and hills, but know more. You have stars in your bones and oceans in blood. You have opposing terrain in each eye you belong to the land and sky of your first cry, you belong to infinity.
Wandl’ ich in dem Wald des abends
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel | 1805-1847
Carolyn Mielke, conductor
Fanny Hensel, née Mendelssohn (1805-47), was an exceptionally gifted musician whose potential was stifled by the gendered social conventions of her upper-middle-class background in mid-19th-century Berlin. She came from a wealthy and cultivated family, distinguished especially by its women. Alongside her brother Felix, she enjoyed an excellent general and musical education throughout her childhood, but while he was encouraged to pursue music professionally, she was prevented from doing so by her father. Nevertheless, music remained centrally important to her within private spaces such as the salon. Fanny Mendelssohn wrote well over two hundred songs. As noted in Stephen Rodgers’s recent book songs, ‘Hensel’s music is tonally adventuresome, … free and flexible, often with a feeling of having been improvised on the spot; it can be at times wildly virtuosic…and at other times stripped to the barest essentials, so that every note, every moment of dissonance, speaks volumes; and it shows little obeisance to orthodox formal models,…pursuing unexpected musical narratives tailored to the needs of each expressive context.’
Text by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) Wandl’ ich in dem Wald des Abends, When I wander in the evening woods, In dem träumerischen Wald, In the dream-like woods, Immer wandelt mir zur Seite Even at my side wanders Deine zärtliche Gestalt. Your tender form. Ist es nicht dein weißer Schleier? Is this not your white veil? Nicht dein sanftes Angesicht? Is this not your mild face? Oder ist es nur der Mondschein Or is it only moonlight Der durch Tannendunkel bricht? Breaking through the darkness of the firs? Sind es meine eignen Tränen Is it my own tears Die ich leise rinnen hör’? That I hear softly running? Oder gehst du, Liebste, wirklich, Or are you, beloved, truly walking here, Weinend neben mir einher? Weeping close beside me?
Sing, Wearing the Sky
Jake Runestad | B. 1986
Madison Tiegreen, conductor
Excerpts of text by Lalla (14 c.) Meditate within eternity. Don’t stay in the mind. The soul, like the moon, is new, and always new again. Since I scoured my mind and my body, I too, Lalla, am new, each moment new. My teacher told me, live in the soul. When that was so, I began to go naked, and dance. Dance, Lalla, with nothing on but air. Sing, Lalla, wearing the sky. Look at this glowing day! What clothes could be more beautiful, or more sacred?
ENSEMBLE SOPRANO Fatima Gaye Bailey Mines Demia Moore Nicole Orabueze Liana Perlman Alexandria Thompson Madison Tiegreen ALTO Margot Cohen Syris Commodore Tywilleen Edouard Kelly Grba Katie Kress Rae Laury Morgan McCray Carolyn Mielke Micah Mondt
CHORAL UNION
Prof. Meghan Stoll, conductor Katie Kress, graduate conductor Kyung-Mi Kim, piano
The Road Home
Stephen Paulus | 1949-2004
Aaron Cummings, graduate conductor
Bonse Aba
Victor Johnson | B. 1978
Shaun Gibbons, graduate conductor
Stephen Paulus was an American Grammy Award winning composer, best known for his operas and choral music. His style is essentially tonal, and melodic and romantic by nature. In a career which encompassed more than forty years of composition his output came to include over 450 works for chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, opera, solo voice, piano, guitar, organ, and band. Paulus lived in the Twin Cities area.
ENSEMBLE SOPRANO Aero Bingham Jaelyn Buford Nora Dressler Parmida Jalali Taylor Luckey Tiana Mccaskill Julie Millien Jazmine Mobley Jenifer Nguyen Jasmyne Porter Britney (Be) Romero Ashley Sali Schnaydah Sauveur Sasha Sins Khelsie Washington Natalie Young Orion Young ALTO Madison Binstock Nijah Coles Lyne-Vasty Delva Lindsay Denney Vanessa Foster Nicole Frysh Terezinha Galvao Summer Harris Diana Hincapie Laura Jones Karrington King Alexandra (Sandy) Land Arie’una Long Nyla Price Rachel Samaniego Madyson Samuels Melody Samuels Nyla Smith Cemya Stone Sarah Swift Omari Wilborn TENOR Samuel Atkins Austin Bozarth Korbin Breaux Atacan Bulunuz Maurice Foster Andrew Frazer Thu Ha Trey House Amir Hubbard Anthony Jordan Edward Keener Philip Lewis Keagan Lindsay Case Moore Cristian Morales Carson Preston Fernando Ramos Joseph Rankin Brandon Sequeira Jeremiah Snow Nash Sullivan Mikael Tamondong Ethan Taylor Xavier Tumusiime Christopher Villa Mason Williams Vincent Zeno BASS Isaiah Anderson Kshitij Bhasin Jaron Brenner Ammad Caesar Manny Capers Takunda Chikungwa Alex Freedman Kaden Goodrich Keefe Gordon Langston Hawkins Jaden Johnnies Duvon Jones Aidan Kellermeyer Alex Logan Grant Lovett Jeffrey Lowe Nowlin Osiris Jayden Perez Jp Price Trey Priester Dajaun Rivers Dre Serrano Joshua Sheperd Barry Smith David Travers Jamir Trotty Diego Valverde Ethan Van Moergastel