earth songs
SATB or SSAA a cappella | 5' | Graphite | Text: Amy Fleury
Amy Fleury's text for Spiritus Mundi is secular but still spiritual, reflecting gratitude for the fruits of the earth: "Do you recognize your own shy gestures / in the weft of the fields? Oh sisters and brothers, / let the gentle tether of our longing keep us here."
SATB a cappella | Graphite | 3.5' | Text: Brandon Elliott
Brandon Elliott's text for Perhaps beautifully captures what musicians try to express in our compositions and performances. "Perhaps we may live an answer or illuminate a story," Elliott writes.
SATB a cappella | 4.5' | Mark Foster Series | Text: Annie Finch
All We Need sets to music Annie Finch's poem “Earth Day," which is a celebration of all that the planet offers us as well as a plea to respect what we find here: "All we need is to find the dark / in the nighttime sky, to lie down to sleep / in the darkness, where stars and moon keep vigil, / in the silence of a sleeping earth."
SSAA a cappella | 3' | Boosey & Hawkes | Text: Stacy Gnall
Flare is constantly in motion, a rhythmic race "through trees with bursting limbs" that drives toward the last line: “big brother, I am catching up to you.”
SATB chorus, mezzo-soprano soloist & audience
text: Barbara Crooker | 70'
A Calendar of Light is a twenty-four movement, concert-length work. With a libretto by poet Barbara Crooker, this new piece explores how our relationship to change is mirrored in our relationship to the changing seasons. These range from small changes, like our personal triumphs and artistic failures, to the urgent and wide-ranging consequences of climate change. This piece calls for reflection and action in recurring refrains and six call-and-response movements that invite the audience to join in singing.
