We Build in Air
November 23, 2024
Kendra Balmer, Michael Blaakman, Sonja Bontrager, Alan Bush, Iris Chan, Daya Deuskar, Julie Frey, Walker Gosrich, Matt Hall, Amy Hochstetler, Elissa Kranzler, Hank Miller, Erina Pearlstein, Rebekah Reddi, Julie Reust, Joe Rim, Jordan Rock, Melinda Steffy, Brett Watanabe, John Whelchel, Ben Willis, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman
Edward C. Bairstow, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”
Johann Hermann Schein, “Die mit Tränen säen”
Elisha West arr. Seth Houston, “The Reapers All with Their Sharp Sickles”
Michael John Trotta, “Dies Irae”
Pauline Oliveros, “Sonic Meditations XVI”
Sarah Rimkus, “Breathe Free”
Dale Trumbore, “A Different Kind of Flight”
Ysaye M. Barnwell, “Breaths”
R. Murray Schafer, “Gamelan”
Bobby McFerrin, “Circlesong 7”
Malcolm Dalglish, “Great Trees”
Notes on the Program
Since Chestnut Street Singers’ founding fifteen years ago, we’ve tried many approaches to singing: in languages as disparate as Icelandic and Xhosa, with musical water glasses and body percussion, in endlessly re-organized arcs and rows and formations, over Zoom or socially distanced in “quarantets,” whistling and droning and overtoning––but the basic formula of our singing together, drawing breath and pitch from our very selves, has never changed. For an ensemble that is cooperatively led, with singers not only making music but also occupying all the artistic and administrative leadership, the metaphor feels tremendously apt: we have built this ourselves, and we rebuild it with every rehearsal, every collaborative concert program, every breath.
We do not take this work for granted—indeed, we must not. For all of us, singers and audience alike, our breath must reveal and refuel in equal measure, holding us accountable and calling on us to release tension, find center, listen––and yes, to rejoice. And the metaphor doesn’t end there: in a choir as in so many other arenas, we each rely on the strength of others to sustain our efforts when we need a moment of respite.
In that spirit, we offer today a program that is both grounded and borne aloft by the simplest, steadiest metric: we breathe together so we can build together. Even when our breaths prove ragged and shallow from anxiety and fear, even when we aren’t sure where the phrase will end, even when we know that singing is not a perfect metaphor for this beautiful and broken world: we take a deep breath and begin.
Edward Bairstow, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”
Creating a musical embodiment of the tension and release held in our most fearful breaths, we open with Edward Bairstow’s 1906 setting of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.” Its text derives from the Christian Liturgy of St. James, likely dating to at least as early as 275 CE, and depicts the arrival of salvation in advance of the Last Judgment. The text is largely celebratory, with Bairstow joyfully portraying the cherubic choirs hailing their longed-for freedom from sorrow. However, the overall musical setting feels portentous, both opening and closing with the warning to “stand with fear and trembling.”
The drama of Bairstow’s composition offers a miniature version of today’s full program: though it can feel uncomfortable or even scary to do so, allowing ourselves to be fully present–through breath and intention both–can bring transformation. Listen for this tension building throughout the first half of the program as we move towards release and even revelation after intermission.
Johann Hermann Schein, “Die mit Tränen säen”
A similar push-and-pull is evident in Johann Hermann Schein’s 17th-century setting of a fragment of Psalm 126 from the Hebrew Bible.Though Schein spent almost all his life in his native Germany––in contrast to his better-traveled friend and fellow early Baroque composer, Heinrich Schütz, to whom he is often compared (sorry, Johann)––he was enamored of expressive Italian Baroque styles. The emotional extremes of “Die mit Tränen säen” are aptly depicted in Schein’s changing tempi and text painting, nowhere more so than in the agonized chromatic build of the opening figure, in which each voice part in turn intones the title phrase: “They who sow with tears.”
Elisha West arr. Seth Houston, “The Reapers All with Their Sharp Sickles”
Reinforcing the timelessness of believing that the end is near, this setting of an early American Christian folk hymn echoes themes of both the Bairstow and Schein, albeit in a much simpler, nearly hypnotic, musical approach. “The Reapers All with Their Sharp Sickles” is structured almost entirely around a haunting invocation sung by a solo soprano, occasionally offered further urgency with the addition of a higher descant voice, while the mostly wordless choir builds tension in the chords below. The alarming text is all forward-looking, challenging the listeners to “ponder your way” as they prepare for “that day when all things in nature shall cease and decay.”
Michael John Trotta, “Dies Irae”
In the interest of ratcheting up the dramatic tension even further, Michael John Trotta directly quotes the titular thirteenth-century chant in his “Dies Irae,” invoking the wrathful prophecy of the Christian tradition’s Last Judgment. Trotta’s increasingly insistent rhythms for the familiar opening chant contrast with a more tender interjection pleading for mercy and salvation, thundering to a dramatic conclusion that repeats the increasingly frantic plea.
Pauline Oliveros, “Sonic Meditation XVI”
But we cannot sustain ourselves on tension and alarm. To re-center, we ask for everyone’s voice as we rebuild, drawing on a participatory form of music-making crafted by American composer Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros’s compositions focused on new ways to draw our attention to music—and to the sometimes unexpected and fleeting music of everyday life––through concepts of “deep listening” and “sonic awareness.” Oliveros’s teachings ask us not only to make sound but to listen, to remember, and to imagine.
She described Deep Listening as a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear, no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of one's own thoughts as well as musical sounds. Today, we invite you to join us in her practice, following this adapted score:
Close your eyes. Practice listening with three breaths. Begin simultaneously with the others. Sing any pitch. The maximum length of the pitch is determined by the breath. Listen to the group. Locate the center of the group sound spectrum. Sing your pitch again and make a tiny adjustment upward or downward, but tuning toward the center of the sound spectrum. Continue to tune slowly, in tiny increments toward the center of the spectrum. Each time sing a long tone with a complete breath until the whole group is singing the same pitch. Continue to drone on that central pitch for about the same length of time it took to reach the unison. Return to the breath.
Sarah Rimkus, “Breathe Free”
Simultaneously listening, remembering, and imagining feels particularly apt in the context of Emma Lazarus’s canonical “The New Colossus,” written for and inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Contemporary American composer Sarah Rimkus here reimagines this storied text in a new frame, composing for socially distanced ensembles during the COVID-19 pandemic. Premiered in Philadelphia at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, the piece draws upon American traditions of shape note singing, with stark, open harmonies and forceful, brazen singing. Rimkus’s clever rhythms play with the sonic impact of a distanced choir: the central quartet and the rest of the ensemble repeatedly echo and play catch-up with one another, with the ensemble occasionally breaking fully into aleatoric, independent tempo in which each singer proceeds at their own pace. In addition to the stirring musical effect, the symbolism of collaborating together from disparate experiences and arrivals feels particularly apt, especially when the choir finally converges to declaim clearly the statue’s proclamation of freedom and welcome.
Dale Trumbore, “A Different Kind of Flight”
We carry that convergence forward, as if finally breaking free of the tensions and precarity that have plagued us. In honor of the ensemble’s fifteenth anniversary, and as part of our exploration of what breath can make possible, we are revisiting a part of our celebrations for our tenth season, returning here to “A Different Kind of Flight,” composed for Chestnut Street Singers by contemporary American composer Dale Trumbore.
Although it is fairly common for choral ensembles to present programs about music, our early conversations with Dale about this project focused on the paucity of art about music-making. Commemorating our tenth anniversary seemed to call for a celebration not just of the milestone and its animating art but 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 Chestnut Street Singers; Dale then refined the compilation into a multi-part libretto, with distinct voices within the text underpinning discrete musical themes. Perhaps appropriately for a piece about the full experience of singing in a choir, the sweeping narrative arc also holds a surprising number of musical jokes: listen for the ensemble mimicking meditation, feeling impatient, or even pretending to miss a note or lose their place in the music.
We premiered “A Different Kind of Flight” in early March 2020. In hindsight, the collaborative texts feel astoundingly prescient, given their emphasis on the ways in which music-making can ground us amidst chaos and uncertainty. In our program notes from the 2020 premiere, we described the work as “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.” The act of our singing together—turning breath and intention into music—feels even more vital today than it did when this piece was first premiered, and we are grateful for the opportunity to revisit it with you.
Ysaye Maria Barnwell, “Breaths”
Embodying the power of our shared intention drives “Breaths,” by the acclaimed American composer and songleader, Ysaye Maria Barnwell, who premiered the piece with Sweet Honey in the Rock. “Breaths” draws upon a poem by the same name, originally composed in French, by the Senegalese writer and diplomat Birago Diop. While studying veterinary medicine in France, Diop was introduced to the emerging Négritude movement of African, African-American, and Caribbean Francophone writers and artists who protested French colonialism and associated policies encouraging cultural assimilation. Barnwell’s setting of Diop’s translated text draws on the poem’s animist themes, turning voices into drumbeats while insisting on the presence of spirit in everything from trees to rocks, from fire to waters.
R. Murray Schafer, “Gamelan”
We remain receptive to those connections and wider resonances in R. Murray Schafer’s “Gamelan,” which uses voices to mimic the sounds of a traditional percussion orchestra among the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia. Recognized by UNESCO as an integral part of Indonesian culture, gamelan ensembles typically have a full orchestra of ornate percussion instruments, tuned according to varying scales depending on the ensemble or the piece. In some tunings, pairs of instruments are tuned slightly apart to produce interference beats when sounded simultaneously, thus invoking the sound of a heartbeat and contributing to meditative and spiritual uses for gamelan. Schafer here uses an unusual pentatonic scale to approximate the slendro tuning commonly used in Balinese gamelan for light, cheerful music.
Bobby McFerrin, “Circlesong 7”
But this moment may call for more than a heartbeat or a breath. We return to what our bodies and our vision can make possible with one of Bobby McFerrin’s classic “Circlesongs”—and we ask again that you join us. McFerrin, an American vocalist, composer, and conductor, developed the curriculum of Circlesongs as a participatory, improvisatory music-making experience, drawing on multiple genres and inviting all voices. And yes, that means your voice, too!
Our songleaders will invite everyone to sing, learning together the piece’s body percussion and overlapping vocal parts. We welcome you to move your body or sing as feels comfortable to you. Improvising is encouraged!
Malcolm Dalglish, “Great Trees”
For all the power we might center in our breath, these impacts can still feel underwhelming or incremental: when the song ends, what remains? We close therefore with this reverent tribute by American composer and hammered dulcimer player Malcolm Dalglish, offering text by poet Wendell Berry. Dalglish draws upon the bright, folksy harmonies we’ve heard previously from West and Rimkus but sets the poem in lilting, dance-like rhythms for a hymn-like effect. The choir’s sound crescendos in pace with the gradual, inevitable growth of the titular trees, reminding us of what remains when we build in air.
Notes by Caroline Winschel