The Recovering Choir Director

Below are selected excerpts from tonight’s concert program for the Cornell Trombone Choir and Chorale. I have been truly blessed to have been a part of this choir this year, and I will miss singing with them immensely.

Cornell University Trombone Choir

Canzona for Four Trombones (1626)
Biagio Marini (1597-1665)

Three Motets: Vexilla regis, Locus iste, Pange lingua
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

Ave Maria (1990)
Franz Biebl (1906-2001), trans. Megan Lemley

Three Equali for Four Trombones (1812): Andante, Poco adagio, Poco sostenuto
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Cornell University Chorale
James Miller*, conductor

Gloria (c. 1976)
Antonio Vivaldi (c. 1678-1741)

1. Gloria in excelsis
2. Et in terra pax
3. Laudamus te
4. Gratias agimus tibi
5. Propter magnam gloriam
6. Domine Deus
7. Domine Fili Unigenite
8. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
9. Qui tollis
10. Qui sedes ad dexteram
11. Quoniam tu solus sanctus
12. Cum Sancto Spiritu

Mary Ellen Russell, soprano; Kari Hetcher and Joy Hunter, alto

Ceremony After a Fire Raid (2003)
World premiere performance
Shawn Allison** (b. 1976)
Ceremony
Eden
Genesis

Pilgrim’s Hymn (1997)
Stephen Paulus (b. 1949)

* Recipient of the 2003 American Choral Directors Association National Conducting Prize (youngest person ever to receive the honor).

**Allison: Ceremony After a Fire Raid
James Miller writes:

“In July of 2002, when I accepted my position at Cornell, I immediately wanted to organize a project to commission a large work for the Chorale. I knew I wanted a composition for chorus and winds, and i mentioned the project to Shawn Allison, who jumped at the opportunity to write the piece. This commission is unique to any that I have done before, asking Allison to write for the ensemble (the instrumentation was up to him), and asking him to attend the rehearsal cycle, acting as a composer-in-residence with the Chorale.

“This project would have not been possible without the generous support of Scott Tucker, the Department of Music, and the Thomas Sokol Fund. My special thanks to members of the Chornell Chorus for singing with us, to the New Heritage Saxophone Quartet for donating so many hours to this project, and to Shawn Allison for creating something that is truly remarkable.”

Shawn Allison provides the following note:

“Three years ago, while reading from the Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet most widely known for ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’ and ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’, I came upon the poem ‘Ceremony After a Fire Raid’, and it took my breath away. I was completely entranced by Thomas’ charactgeristic manipulation of language, where the sound of a word is often more important than the typical meaning of the word itself. I knew immediately that I had to set it to music, but I did not have the opportunity until James Miller proposed to commission a work for choir and wind ensemble. I leapt at the chance, and knew the time had come to write the piece.

“Ceremony After a Fire Raid was commissioned by the Cornell Chorale in the fall of 2002 for its spring 2003 concert. This three-movement work is scored for SATB choir, antiphonal women’s choir, chamber winds (wind sextet, saxophone quartet, and brass quintet), percussion, piano and organ.

“The work, like the poem, is divided into three movements. Each section of the poem evokes images of a bombed, post-World War II London, complete with graphic emotional descriptions of the aftermath of war. Thomas suggests a unification of all people through the universality of human suffering. In his first word ‘myselves’ he introduces the sense that there is a massive personal pronoun, a ‘we’ that extends throughout space and time.

“Neither the poem nor the piece is a protest against the war in any direct way. Rather, they evoke a ceremony in which people try to come to terms with the tragedies of war.

“I have wanted to write this piece for years. After finally getting the opportunity, I am grateful that it can be shared with an audience. My only regret is that now it is all too timely.

“The first movement is a ceremonial lament for the victims of war. It is a service of grief, with the only consolation coming from the penultimate line ‘Love is the last light spoken.’ The second movement is a meditation on the death of innocents. It is subdued, pure, and elusive, and the third movement speaks of the power that lies in creation. It tells us that creation can be just as cataclysmic as destruction, and that with each ending, there has to be a beginning.”

If anyone reading this blog has an opportunity to sing in one of Mr. Miller’s choirs, or sing/play the Allison piece, take it. You will not be disappointed.