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Wisconsin Chamber Choir

Wisconsin Chamber Choir
Concert Program https://www.canva.com/design/DAGfC_xOAGo/iLD5r-u0RvTkUO3JSWuuWA/view?utm_content=DAGfC_xOAGo&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hddd637de45 Concert Order Ah, je veux vivre (Roméo et Juliette) - Charles Gounod An Sylvia - Franz Schubert Come Away, Come Away, Death - Roger Quilter A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square - Manning Sherwin Sigh No More - Mumford and Sons Somewhere (West Side Story) - Leonard Bernstein Maria (West Side Story) - Leonard Bernstein Falling in Love with Love(The Boys from Syracuse) - Richard Rodgers The Lady Must be Mad (Illyria) - Peter Mills Brush Up Your Shakespeare (Kiss Me, Kate) - Cole Porter Under the Greenwood Tree - Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel Orpheus with His Lute - George Macfarren From A Lover’s Journey - Libby Larsen -Will You, Nil You? -Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? From Songs and Sonnets - George Shearing -It Was a Lover and His Lass -Who Is Sylvia? -Fie on Sinful Fantasy From Music to Hear - George Shearing -Sigh No More, Ladies -Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
"Shakespeare In Love" presented by the Wisconsin Chamber Choir
Concert Program - https://www.canva.com/design/DAF9LsMgkjo/2rbzKpT2yi8lgZpv014ftA/view?utm_content=DAF9LsMgkjo&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=embeds&utm_source=link Looking to Heaven—Renaissance Motets Factum est silentium Richard Dering Audivi vocem de caelo Duarte Lobo Ukrainian Sacred Music Hvalite Ghospoda s nebes Maxim Berezovsky Heruvimskaya pesn Dmitry Bortniansky Jewish and Palestinian Voices Lo Yisa Goy Stacy Garrop Lao Rahal Soti Samih Choukeir/Shireen Abu Khader Music of Adolphus Hailstork When Storms Arise Wake Up, My Spirit ~ Intermission ~ Heavenly Songs—Music of Brahms O schöne Nacht, op. 92, no. 1 Johannes Brahms Warum, op. 92, no. 4 Johannes Brahms Imagining the Future Poem for 2084 Edie Hill Stars, Planets, and Sun Stars Dale Warland See How These Masses Mill and Swarm Stacy Garrop Even After All This Time Reena Esmail May the 4th Be With You Duel of the Fates John Williams Music of the African Diaspora Sing to the Moon Laura Mvula John Saw de Numbuh arr. Stacey V. Gibbs
"Out Of This World" - Presented by the Wisconsin Chamber Choir
Performed live on December 14, 2024. Read the full program here: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGPMPR-m5Y/Blm-X60-Ssrutp0X41JI0g/view?utm_content=DAGPMPR-m5Y&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hdee77c9fc5 Program: Latin Motets Hodie Christus natus est - Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Regina Caeli - Cecilia McDowall O Magnum Mysterium - Wayne Oquin Lully, Lullay Lullay, My Liking - Gustav Holst This Endris Night - Malcolm Archer Coventry Carol - Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors Manifesto - Jean Belmont Ford Carols of the Season I Wonder as I Wander - John Jacob Niles /arr. Steve Pilkington Wexford Carol - Traditional Irish /arr. David Mooney Go Tell It on the Mountain - African American spiritual | arr. Evelyn Simpson-Curenton ~ Intermission ~ A Ceremony of Carols - Benjamin Britten | arr. Julius Harrison I. Procession II. Wolcum Yole! III. There is no Rose IVa. That yongë child IVb. Balulalow V. As dew in Aprille VI. This little Babe VII. Interlude VIII. In Freezing Winter Night IX. Spring Carol X. Deo Gracias XI. Recession Donate Online: https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/1622433
Ceremony Of Carols presented by the Wisconsin Chamber Choir
Preview for our "Ceremony of Carols" concert on December 14th. Tickets available online or at the door.
Lullay, My Liking by Gustav Holst
Trouble Don't Last Always arr. Leotha Stanley I'm so glad Trouble don't last always. May not come when you want Him But He's on time In times of trouble, I found Him to be A friend of mine When storm clouds rise in your life He'll be there, All your burdens I know the Lord will help you to bear. Weeping may endure for a night Keep the faith it will be alright. Excerpt from our program notes by Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck: “In 1977, gospel pianist Thomas Whitfield (1954-1992) founded The Thomas Whitfield Company in Detroit, one of the most influential gospel ensembles in the history of the genre. The Whitfield company pioneered a new style of gospel music with its “inventive blending of gospel, jazz, and classical harmonies, progressions, and forms,” according to composer, conductor, and Whitfield scholar, Brandon Christian Waddles. The Whitfield Company’s choral sound was praised for its warmth, precision, nuance, and dramatic power, making it the perfect vehicle to realize Whitfield’s new focus on emotional connection in gospel lyrics. Waddles continues, “Whitfield’s art-song-like interpretation of lyricism unveiled the intimacy of gospel music, setting the stage for [the] Black praise and worship [movement].” As an arranger and producer, Whitfield introduced elaborate, orchestral textures into the gospel genre. Besides his own recordings, he arranged and produced early recordings by Vanessa Bell Armstrong and Yolanda Adams, effectively launching the careers of these contemporary gospel superstars. His arrangements for Aretha Franklin resulted in multiple Grammy awards, in addition to those he won with his own ensemble.”
Trouble Don't Last Always arr. Leotha Stanley presented by the Wisconsin Chamber Choir & Friends
Praise the Lord, Everybody arranged by Leotha Stanley Excerpt from our program notes by Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck: “Gospel singer and composer O’Landa Draper (1963-1998) was born in Memphis, where he founded the Associates, one of the leading gospel ensembles of the 1990s. The choir performed with a wide range of artists including Billy Joel and B. B. King, and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. Draper’s final album with the Associates, Reflections, recorded shortly before his death, won a Grammy in 1999.”
Praise the Lord, Everybody arr. by Leotha Stanley presented by Leotha and Tamera Stanley & Friends
Worship the Lord arranged by Leotha Stanley Excerpt from our concert program: “Leotha (Lee) Stanley is a retired firefighter / paramedic for the city of Madison and worked as an Employment Specialist for the Urban League of Greater Madison. He is currently the Director of Operations for UMOJA Magazine. Tamera Stanley currently serves as the Liaison for Family, Staff & Community Engagement at the Verona Area School District. Lee & Tamera are very engaged in community activities where they may be seen conducting choirs or providing music as a dynamic duo. (he plays / she sings). The Stanleys have written or arranged music for the Madison Symphony Orchestra and perform their charts each year at the MSO Christmas Concert. They conduct an 80-voiced choir for the MLK Commemoration program each year. Since the pandemic, they have learned the art of video editing releasing a variety of music videos where concert goers could not attend. They also produce a Gospel Carols Concert each year, giving traditional carols a Stanley twist. (www.gospelcarols.com) You can also find the Stanley’s each Sunday evening at the Stanley Gospel Café, a live broadcast featuring guests from Madison and the surrounding communities. Since 1990, Lee has worked with countless schools in Madison and throughout the Midwest as an artist in residence teaching many different genres of music to children. He has written two books of music for children, has composed scores of songs and has been the music director for the Mt. Zion Church in Madison for the last 47 years.”
Worship the Lord arranged by Leotha Stanley presented by Leotha and Tamera Stanley & Friends
1. Gospel by Alvin Singleton Swing low so I can step inside - a humming ship of voices big with all the wrongs done done them. No sound this generous could fail: ride joy until it cracks like an egg, make sorrow seethe and whisper. From a fortress of animal misery soars the chill voice of the tenor, enraptured with sacrifice. What do I see, he complains, notes brightly rising towards a sky blank with promise. Yet how healthy the single contralto settling deeper into her watery furs! Carry me home, she cajoles, bearing down. Candelabras brim. But he slips through God’s net and swims heavenward, warbling. 2. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot - African American Spiritual arranged by Alice Parker Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home. I looked over Jordan, and what did I see, A band of angels coming after me. I'm sometimes up and sometimes down, Sometimes I’m almost to the ground. Excerpt from our program notes by Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck: “The poem “Gospel” is from the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Thomas and Beulah by US Poet Laureate, Rita Dove (b. 1956). Written as a tribute to the poet’s grandparents, the two halves of the collection are each devoted to one grandparent. In the opening poem, “The Event,” we learn that, as a young man, Dove’s grandfather Thomas migrated north from Tennessee to Ohio on a riverboat with his best friend, Lem. A night of singing and drinking ended in tragedy when Lem jumped overboard to try to swim to a nearby island and drowned. Lem’s absence haunted the remainder of Thomas’s life, and many of the ensuing poems in his section of the book refer to Lem’s tragic death in some way. The poem “Gospel” meditates on middle-aged Thomas’s experience singing tenor in the gospel choir of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Akron, Ohio. Dove employs water imagery—beginning with the “humming ship of voices” and ending with the tenor “swimming heavenward, warbling” as painful reminders of the lives of Thomas’s ancestors and the death of his friend. Composer Alvin Singleton (b. 1940) has set many of Dove’s poems to music, including in Gospel, commissioned by Minneapolis-based Vocalessence in 1988. This work exhibits features common to Singleton’s music across many genres, including his flexible approach to rhythm, textures featuring interlocking ostinatos, and an unabashedly expressive harmonic language. Born in Brooklyn, Singleton lived and worked in Europe for 14 years before returning to the US, where he has worked closely with several American orchestras and numerous other ensembles. His choral ballet Truth, based on the life of nineteenth-century abolitionist, Sojourner Truth, premiered in 2006. Rita Dove is also a trained musician, and much of her poetry alludes to music and musicians in various ways. In “Gospel,” the “single contralto / settling deeper / into her watery furs” evokes opera singer Marian Anderson’s legendary 1939 performance (in a fur coat) in front of the Lincoln Memorial, after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred the world-famous opera star from performing in Washington’s Constitution Hall. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R. in protest, and the Roosevelt administration arranged the concert on the Mall. In front of an outdoor crowd of seventy-five thousand people, Anderson performed a set of patriotic songs, opera arias, and spirituals. A spiritual underlies Rita Dove’s “Gospel” as well: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which we present as a coda to Singleton’s Gospel. Although there are many moving, affecting, and even virtuoso choral settings of Swing Low to choose from, a simple version seemed to be called for. The most straightforward choral version to be found was a 1958 arrangement by Alice Parker (1925-2023), one of the most respected white scholars and arrangers of spirituals.”
Gospel by Alvin Singleton & Swing Low, Sweet Chariot presented by the Wisconsin Chamber Choir
1.Summer is Gone by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Summer is gone with all its roses, Its sun and perfumes and sweet flowers, Its warm air and refreshing showers: And even Autumn closes. Yea, Autumn's chilly self is going, And winter comes which is yet colder; Each day the hoar-frost waxes bolder And the last buds cease blowing. 2. The Lee Shore by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Sleet! and hail! and thunder! And ye winds that rave, Till the sands there under Tinge the sullen wave. Winds, that like a demon Howl with horrid note Round the toiling seaman, In his tossing boat. From his humble dwelling On the shingly shore, Where the billows swelling Keep such hollow roar. From that weeping woman, Seeking with her cries Succor superhuman From the frowning skies. From the urchin pining For his father's knee, From the lattice shining, Drive him out to sea! Let broad leagues dissever Him from yonder foam; O, God! to think man ever Comes too near his home! Excerpt from our program notes by Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck: “Summer Is Gone and The Lee Shore by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) exemplify the high point of the English Romantic partsong around the turn of the twentieth century. Like similar works by his friend, Edward Elgar, as well as those by his teacher, Charles Villiers Stanford, Coleridge-Taylor’s partsongs distill the emotional substance of their lyrics down to one or two overarching moods, while painting the individual words in broad brush strokes. The sweep of a phrase, an unexpected change of direction of the harmony, and the dramatic use of musical dynamics (crescendos, diminuendos, and sudden shifts between soft and loud) are the favored means of musical expression in this repertoire. The literary sources are major nineteenth-century British authors. Christina Rossetti’s poem, Bitter for Sweet, despairs of winter’s onset in eight compact lines whose emotional intensity is matched by Coleridge-Taylor’s sighing melodies and heart-wrenching harmonies in Summer is Gone. In The Lee Shore, a popular poem by Thomas Hood, the dangers of sailing too close to the shore during a storm become a metaphor for the precariousness of human existence. Coleridge-Taylor responded with stormy, rhythmic music in the first half of his setting, with a sudden shift to deathly still blocks of minor triads in the second half. Coleridge-Taylor’s father was a black, London-educated medical doctor from Sierra Leone, and his mother, an Englishwoman from Croydon, near London. After his father returned to West Africa to work as a surgeon, Samuel was raised by his mother’s extended family. His grandfather, a blacksmith, gave him his first lessons on violin, after which Samuel received further music lessons from local professionals. He entered the Royal College of Music at age 15 and studied composition with Stanford. His first published work, a church anthem, appeared in print in 1891, testifying to the 16-year-old composer’s precocity. A steady stream of works in a variety of genres followed, leading up to the large-scale cantata, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast of 1898. This work, based on an epic poem by Longfellow, rapidly became the most popular English oratorio of its time, and the composer soon expanded it into a trilogy known as Scenes from the Song of Hiawatha. The complete trilogy received hundreds of performances during the next few years, earning Coleridge-Taylor widespread acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Prestigious conducting and teaching positions followed, including as permanent conductor of the London Handel Society from 1904 until Coleridge-Taylor’s death. Between 1904 and 1910, Coleridge-Taylor accepted three separate invitations to tour the US as a conductor, where he became known as the “black Mahler.” His 1904 performance of Hiawatha in Washington, D.C. featured the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, an all-Black chorus, accompanied by the United States Marine Band, performing to an audience of 3000. Several members of President Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet attended, and the President himself met with Coleridge-Taylor at the White House several days later. On subsequent US tours, the composer traveled as far west as Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee.
Songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor presented by the Wisconsin Chamber Choir
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