Search for Home
On Movement and Migration

November 12, 2016: Friends’ Central School 

November 13, 2016: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

Michael Blaakman, Sonja Bontrager, Conrad Erb, Amy Hochstetler, Nicandro Iannacci, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Cortlandt Matthews, Brian Middleton, Hank Miller, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Melinda Steffy, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

David Ludwig, “The New Colossus”
traditional Appalachian c. 1800, arr. Moira Smiley, “Wayfaring Stranger”
Tomas Luis de Victoria, “Super flumina Babylonis”
Heinrich Isaac, “Innsbruck, ic muss dich lassen”
Stacy Garrop, “Give Me Hunger”
Dale Trumbore, “Where Go the Boats?”
Christopher Marshall, “This Big Moroccan Sea”
traditional Bambuti chant, “Ama ibu o iye”
Abbie Betinis, “Suffer No Grief” from Beyond the Caravan: Songs of Hâfez
Johannes Brahms, “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein”
Ysaye M. Barnwell, “We Are”
Stephen Paulus, “The Road Home”
African American spiritual arr. Hall Johnson, “Great Camp Meeting”
Jocelyn Hagen, “Now Our Meeting’s Over”

Notes on the Program

We know that ours is a nation born of immigrants; most of us here today descended from ancestors born on other shores. And yet the story of immigrants is not history. It is a living story being experienced by people all over the world at this moment. Our current political discourse might have us believe that immigrants, refugees, and America’s potential response to them is a tale of extremes: either an open welcome or a wall. The truth is not so black and white. Immigrants’ stories are varied and nuanced, but the thread common throughout is one of upheaval: there is uncertainty, pain, and loss, yes, but in these narratives there is also discovery, yearning, and opportunity. The stories in this program represent a range of journeys, from desperate to intentional, from community-wide to introspective. Whether or not we have experienced the physical act of leaving our homeland behind, it is clear that longing for “home,” whether or not home is a physical place, is a universal feeling. Today we journey together, seekers and refugees all.

We begin with local composer David Ludwig’s setting of Emma Lazarus’ sonnet “The New Colossus.” Lazarus donated the poem to a fundraiser for the Statue of Liberty, and it was inscribed on a plaque at the statue’s base in her memory in 1903. Her words have become the voice of the Statue of Liberty as she welcomes ships full of “huddled masses” to New York. Ludwig’s simple yet evocative setting, moving from unison to lush harmony, lets the poem speak for itself.

Believed to have roots in Appalachian folk tradition, “Wayfaring Stranger” has been adopted by the American folk, country, and gospel music communities, and it also appears in some hymnals. Like many spirituals, its message of traveling through toil to reach a better––be it a spiritual journey to the afterlife or a physical journey to a new home––gives hope to those experiencing hardship. Contemporary composer Moira Smiley’s arrangement incorporates call and response and syncopation, elements common in spirituals, and, like many of her arrangements, a driving beat provided by body percussion.

Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria’s “Super flumina Babylonis” sets the Latin text of the beginning of Psalm 137. The enslaved Israelites mourn their exile from Jerusalem and the cruelty of their captors: ordered to sing and dance along the way, they abandon their instruments, lamenting, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” 

“Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen,” a slightly early composition by Heinrich Isaac, is, by contrast, a secular tale of a traveler who leaves willingly but is nonetheless forlorn. Isaac himself traveled a great deal in his lifetime, from his home in Flanders to Germany, Austria, and Italy.

Poet Carl Sandburg is known for his rough, edgy portrayals of American industrialization and urban life. In At a Window, whose text Stacy Garrop set for her piece “Give Me Hunger,” he shows a rare softer side. He begins furiously, imploring the gods to give him their worst––“hunger, pain and want”––and, in a reference to Emma Lazarus’ welcoming “golden door,” challenging the gods to shut him out from “your doors of gold and fame.” But when his fury is spent, he pleads, “Leave me a little love.” Garrop mirrors the two contrasting halves of the poem with the two sections of the piece: the first is angsty, with a driving but unsettling rhythm and harsh sonorities, while the second wraps us in warm, lush harmonies that reflect the love for which we all yearn.

With Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Where Go the Boats?”, Los Angeles–based composer Dale Trumbore explores the deeper currents of a seemingly simple text for children. She writes, “I was struck by the fact that the narrator copes with the lost boats in the same way an adult must cope with lost love. Though the lost objects are gone forever, they will nonetheless be loved again in the future. This setting reflects a bit of that bittersweetness, that heartache.”

Christopher Marshall shows us a much darker look at the power of water in “This Big Moroccan Sea.” In 2006, a small, battered yacht washed ashore in Barbados that would be come to be known as the “death boat.” On board, authorities found the mummified bodies of 11 young men later determined to have left the coast of Cape Verde bound for the Canary Islands. Originally a group of 50 African migrants in search of a better life in Europe, they were abandoned by their paid guide when the yacht’s engine failed and left without food, water, or fuel to drift for months across the Atlantic. One victim, later determined to be Diao Souncar Diémé of Senegal, was found with a note penned before his death. In Marshall’s setting, Diémé’s heart-wrenching farewell is sung by the tenor soloist, while the choir echoes and surrounds him. When the soloist fades away, only the choir remains, evoking the overwhelming and unforgiving sea and sky. 

We return for the second half of the program with “Ama ibu o iye,” a chant from the Bambuti people, an indigenous pygmy community in the rainforest in the Congo region of Central Africa. Imitating the sounds of the rainforest—a sacred place for the Bambuti—the chant calls the community together and is repeated until a sense of community has been achieved. As with many chant traditions, we learned this chant aurally: ensemble member Melinda Steffy taught it to us; she learned it years ago in a workshop with composer Ysaye Maria Barnwell, who had presumably learned it from someone else, and so on until the first transmission from the Bambuti community. This chant feels, perhaps, the most distant from our own context of any of the music on today’s program, and we acknowledge we know little about Bambuti culture or their singing traditions. Like the game of “telephone,” or the ongoing shifting of cultures across generations and geographies, we assume that information has been lost along the way—that meaning and style and context have changed as the chant has passed from one “generation” to the next, from one continent to another. It is our hope that by attempting to create our own community together as we sing, we honor the spirit of the chant and the Bambuti people.

Similarly, in setting the lyric poetry of 14th-century Persian poet Hâfez, Abbie Betinis admits, “The music is my own, and not authentically Persian. It is my interpretation of an assortment of influences, including my study of Persian speech, scales and modes.” Even if not authentically Persian, From Behind the Caravan honors the intonation of the language and the musical sensibilities inherent in the beautiful poetry. In the second movement, “Suffer no Grief,” which we excerpt today, Betinis highlights Hâfez’s longing for an end to suffering. Even amidst grief and displacement, we are assured that “there is no road that has no end.”

Paul Eber’s text “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein” is a prayer for help from God to lead us through our darkest hour. This heartfelt plea is not unlike the prayers heard in African-American spirituals. Johannes Brahms composed his setting of the text late in his life. The first chord is a simple G major, but from the next beat, the harmonies progress in complex, unexpected ways, giving a simple prayer an earnest urgency.

The similarities that bind us all, from Europe to Africa to the Appalachian mountains, are the focus of “We Are,” an iconic composition by educator, composer, and longtime member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Ysaye Maria Barnwell. Especially in our current political climate, refugees and immigrants are so often painted as foreign, alien “others.” But the human longing for love and for home unite us in spite of any differences that appear to divide us, as so many pieces on today’s program demonstrate, and Barnwell’s piece culminates by reminding us: we are one. 

Prolific American composer Stephen Paulus is renowned for simple yet moving hymn-like pieces, and “The Road Home” is no exception. The tune is taken from a song called “The Lone Wild Bird” from The Southern Harmony Songbook, published in 1835. Paulus’ friend and frequent collaborator, poet Michael Dennis Browne, was between visits to his native England to see his ailing sister when he wrote the text for the piece. The universal theme of searching for home pairs perfectly with the pentatonic melody. Paulus wrote of the piece, “The most powerful and beautiful message is often a simple one.”

Hall Johnson was born in Athens, Georgia, and grew up hearing spirituals sung by his mother and grandmother, both of whom had been slaves. Johnson went on to have an incredibly accomplished musical career and became one of a group of composers and arrangers who helped to elevate the spiritual to a respected art form in itself. His Hall Johnson Choir, whose arrangement of “Great Camp Meeting” we sing, traveled the world and appeared on movie soundtracks throughout the 1930s and 40s.

We conclude with American composer Jocelyn Hagen’s arrangement of a traditional folk song, “Now Our Meeting’s Over.” Like so many of the pieces on our program today, the message of the text is simple, yet universal, and can be interpreted either secularly or spiritually. We will meet our lost loved ones “on that shore”: we may be yearning to reunite with them in a promised land that is a new home across the sea or in the afterlife. Listen as the melody moves and is highlighted by each voice part in turn, reiterating that the search for home and for love is one that unites us all.

Notes by Lizzy Schwartz

flourish: reckless hope rises

May 15, 2016
Sonja Bontrager, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Brian Middleton, Bryan Park, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Emily Sung, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

Gabriel Jackson, To Morning
Healey Willan, Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One
James MacMillan, The Gallant Weaver
John Tavener, Village Wedding
Samuel Barber, Easter Chorale
Johann Sebastian Bach, Jesu, meine Freude
Orlando di Lasso, Justorum animae
Charles Villiers Stanford, Beati Quorum Via
Knut Nystedt, Lobet den Herrn
Stephen Paulus, Hymn to the Eternal Flame

Notes on the Program
When we were choosing repertoire for this year, we imagined the three concerts fitting together as a grand cycle. Our fall concert, fray, looked at endings in many forms, from the death of love to the apocalypse. In the darkest time of winter, we saw a glimmer of hope as we sang gather, our first-ever Christmas concert. With the arrival of spring, we sing of rebirth, new beginnings, and the promise that salvation grows from the good we sow in the darkest of times.

This is the central message of J.S. Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude, a true showpiece for the composer’s many-layered brilliance. It was intimidating to consider the question of whether we were up to the task of bringing that genius to life, and although we are not trailblazers in performing this music, the brilliance of Jesu, meine Freude will always surpass its ubiquity. It is a triumphant affirmation of life and of victory over our innermost demons. It is necessary music.

Gabriel Jackson’s shimmering invocation “To Morning” opens our concert, calling on the virgin huntress Diana of Greek mythology to bring forth a new day. Diana was also the goddess of childbirth, so William Blake’s poem acts as a supplication for rebirth. Broad, sweeping crescendos create a sort of musical sunrise. As we are awakened, we sing “Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One,” rousing our lover to come and witness the rebirth of the world after winter’s end. But frolicking with our lover in springtime is not always the way the world would have it, especially with the patriarchy standing in the way. The narrator of Robert Burns’ “The Gallant Weaver” vows to keep her true love in her heart, even as her father promises her to a wealthier suitor. MacMillan’s setting of this poem cleverly mimics the pulsing ebb and flow of a loom, weaving together strands of melody into a lush fabric of sound.

In his “Village Wedding,” John Tavener chose scattered lines from Angelos Sikelianos’ early 20th-century poem, offering starkly contrasting glimpses into a traditional Greek wedding ceremony and the culture’s devotion to both its mythical past and its Christian present. The refrain of “Oh Isaiah dance for joy, for the virgin is with child” most obviously refers to the virgin Mary, but a duality emerges with clear references—as in our opening piece—to the mythical virgin Diana, born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos. Furthermore, when taken purely at face value (and with the title in mind), the poem could simply portray a shotgun wedding in a Greek village. The bride is forced to wed her unborn child’s father, but in doing so is poetically interwoven with goddesses. She is deified through her most personal struggle.

With Barber’s “Easter Chorale,” we are back to our exuberance at the arrival of spring, this time more clearly representing the rebirth and awakening found through the ascension of Jesus Christ. We take a bit of liberty in singing this with continuo organ today, as it was originally scored for brass, timpani, and full cathedral organ, but with the message in its text and Barber’s clear imitation of a baroque chorale, we couldn’t pass up the chance to end the first half with a little taste of the Bach to come.

The text of Jesu, meine Freude alternates between a 17th-century hymn by Johann Franck and St. Paul’s biblical letter to the Romans. The hymn depicts an all-out (but very private) brawl—let’s reimagine it as Rocky, with the titular underdog representing Faith and his impossibly accomplished opponent representing Satan, temptation, and death. As we watch the climactic bout on screen, St. Paul, sitting next to us, innocently interjects and gives away the ending (spoiler alert: if you live in the way of Christ, Rocky wins in the end).

Franck’s hymn makes up the odd movements, which grow in polyphonic complexity as the motet progresses, sometimes completely obscuring the chorale melody, as in movement five, “Trotz dem alten Drachen.” This progression culminates in the ninth movement, “Gute Nacht, o Wesen”—listen for the altos’ occasional interjections of the chorale melody, punctuating the endlessly wandering tenor line—before triumphantly returning to its original homophonic setting in the final chorale.

The even movements are freely composed, and without the restraint of the chorale melody, Bach was able to show off his genius for counterpoint. We get our first taste for fugal writing in the second movement, but Bach really takes off in movement six, “Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich,” where we have not one but two fugue subjects and a grand adagio coda to bring it all back to earth. The penultimate movement echoes the roiling energy from the second, signaling the soul’s inevitable victory over death.

Both Di Lasso’s “Justorum animae” and Stanford’s “Beati quorum via” distill the same message as the Bach: follow in the way of Jesus and receive the blessing of eternal life. Neither piece depicts the conflict or turmoil of the Bach, so the composers basked in the optimism of their respective texts to create lush polyphony, albeit from very different eras.

Like our opening piece, the last two works we sing today are invocations. Nystedt’s “Lobet den Herrn” is a playful and extroverted call to praise God, simply because he is worthy of being praised. We end, more simply, with a call to praise humanity. “Hymn to the Eternal Flame,” from Stephen Paulus’ Holocaust oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn, is a reminder that, no matter your individual faith, no matter what darkness we face, the fire of rebirth lies within us all.

gather: in the stillness born

January 10, 2016
Sonja Bontrager, Josh Dearing, Nathan P. Gibney, Amy Hochstetler, Michael Johnson, Elissa Kranzler, Kurt Marsden, Brian Middleton, Bryan Park, John Piccolini, Rebekah Reddi, Jordan Rock, Lizzy Schwartz, Paul Spanagel, Dan Sprague, Melinda Steffy, Caroline Winschel, Michele Zuckman

William Walton, Make we joy now in this fest
David Conte, O magnum mysterium
Arvo Pärt, Bogoróditse Djévo
Michael Praetorius and Jan Sandström, Est ist ein Ros entsprungen
Judith Weir, Drop down, ye heavens, from above
Philip Stopford, Tomorrow shall be my dancing day
Jean Mouton, Nesciens mater
Abbie Betinis, Song of the Pines
Jan Pieters Sweelinck, Hodie Christus natus est
Kenneth Leighton, Lulla, lulla, thou little tiny child
Jonathan Dove, The Three Kings
Herbert Howells, Here is the Little Door
Steven Sametz, Noel!
Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina, Videntes stellam Magi
arr. William Averitt, Star in the East
Ola Gjeilo, Serenity (O magnum mysterium)

Notes on the Program
In the Christian month of Advent, a new candle is lit each week, representing hope, love, joy, and peace. No matter our faith, at this time of year we share these kinds of blessings with one another, but for many of us, this is really a time of searching. We wander the desert like the magi from the East, and the good tidings of Christmas seem a distant promise. The light that guides us to Bethlehem is not a wreath of candles but the flicker of a distant star.

Imagine that today’s concert is a miniature of that storied westward journey. Before we set out, we rejoice at having seen the star whose rise was prophesied long ago. Walton’s “Make we joy now in this fest,” though a modern piece, wonderfully preserves its origins as a rollicking 15th-century English carol. We add our own bit of historical preservation by singing the Middle English pronunciation, which keeps the rhymes intact.

With the first footsteps of our voyage, we marvel at far-off rumors of the messiah’s rather impromptu birth in the presence of farm animals. David Conte’s setting of the ancient “O magnum mysterium” text, with its jarring shifts in tonal center and fervent overlapping lines, perfectly captures the wondrous anticipation we feel as we travel along. Could it be that salvation is truly a simple boy born in a stable?

More whispers reach our ears as we approach Bethlehem. The child was born of a virgin mother! We hear songs in praise of her virtue: breathless and overflowing, as Arvo Pärt’s “Bogoroditse Djevo,” and otherworldly, as Jan Sandström’s reimagining of “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.” The latter builds gentle dissonance from cluster chords and employs rhythmic augmentation to create an ethereal (and somehow distinctly Swedish) setting of Praetorius’ familiar harmonization.

As we trudge on, we reflect on the Advent promise of comfort and renewal. “Drop down, ye heavens, from above,” Judith Weir’s crystalline composition based on the Gregorian Rorate caeli chant melody, is God’s steadfast assurance that salvation is just around the corner. What would that assurance sound like in the words of the infant Jesus himself? Philip Stopford’s jaunty setting of the familiar text “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” imagines humanity as Jesus’ true love. He personally calls us to follow him in a dance—his life on earth, and through it, our redemption.

Finally our journey reaches its improbable end at the rumored stable, where we find a mother nursing her newborn baby. Jean Mouton’s “Nesciens mater” is a masterful representation of this tender scene: an eight-part canon, where the lower choir is echoed, note for note, a fifth higher. We hold this moment of stillness with Abbie Betinis’ silvery “Song of the Pines,” its refrain an echo of the wonder in the O magnum mysterium. The wondrous mystery of Jesus’ birth, however, was not that mere animals were present, but that perhaps we ourselves are the ox and ass, bearing witness—despite our insignificance—to the arrival of hope personified.

Before we settle into the stable, we pause for a quick chance to step outside and help spread the good news. With unabashed joy, we announce the birth of Christ to any who will listen as we sing Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s iconic Renaissance chestnut “Hodie Christus natus est.”

As we quietly gather near the manger, Mary sings to her baby. The “Lully, lulla” we hear today is another modern setting of an old text. Kenneth Leighton places the refrain of this familiar lullaby in the mother’s singular, lofty voice as she sings her child to sleep, with the help of the choir’s soothing lilt. Scottish composer Jonathan Dove’s “The Three Kings” perfectly distills the full range of emotions behind greeting the holy family and presenting our gifts. We stand in hushed awe as the mother rocks her baby to sleep, but as the third king opens his chest of gold, joy overflows and the words of Mary’s lullaby are cleverly transformed into cries of joy: O balow! Balow la lay!

In her poem “Here is the Little Door,” Frances Chesterton moved beyond the gifts of the magi and hinted at the greater implications of the birth of Christ, suggesting that the infant Jesus gave rather weightier gifts of his own in return: a sword for gold, battle for frankincense, death for myrrh. The notion is timely for a poem that Herbert Howells set to music in the midst of the first world war, as England lost a generation and its Christian empire began to crumble.

We turn outward again for our next three pieces: Steven Sametz uses the words of a medieval English carol in his increasingly extroverted, four-part men’s canon—simply called “Noel!”—which calls the world to awaken and recognize the significance of this simple birth. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s “Videntes stellam Magi” is a jubilant, double-choir motet whose dance-like conclusion projects the joy we feel at the end of our long journey. “Star in the East,” William Averitt’s arrangement of a shape note hymn from The Southern Harmony, is our earnest ode to the brilliant light that first guided us out of the lonely desert. It ends with the sage reminder that, costly as our material gifts are, the most meaningful gift is our love.

Finally, we return (with cello!) to peaceful prayer, reflecting on the great mystery we first found in the stable, where kings and donkeys worship side by side. Standing in stark contrast to Conte’s opening conception of “O magnum mysterium,” Ola Gjeilo’s “Serenity” is stunning in its simple, profound beauty.

Today, our Christmas feasts have ended, and the wonder of the season inevitably fades as the new year and the cold winter make the tidings of hope, love, joy, and peace feel as distant as ever. But other candles still shine through the long nights, and we can still join together for little celebrations like this one. A celebration of birth, of searching, and of finding the true meaning of Christmas: giving freely of our riches in celebration of our humanity.