Chamber Singers and University Chorale 

Freedom, Music, Peace
UNIVERSITY CHORALE
Dr. Giselle Wyers, conductor
Serena Chin, collaborative pianist
Leah Wyman and Marshell Lombard, assistant conductors

String Quartet: Christine Chu, violin; 1 Selina Siow, violin 2; Eugene Chin, viola; Youngbin Kim, cello

Join in Gathering 
Giselle Wyers (b. 1969)

Join in gathering remnants of song.
We love to sing along.
Gathering voices, gathering hands,
Gathering neighbors, gathering blossoms of song.

Freedom Comes  (World premiere)
Alexander Nam Nguyễn (b. 2000)
conducted by Alexander Nam Nguyễn

Freedom comes,
Only when love has won,
That’s the day freedom comes. 
Music rings,
Only when kindness sings,
That’s the day music rings.

My Spirit Sang All Day 
Gerald Finzi (1901–1956)
Text by Robert Bridges (1844–1930)

My spirit sang all day, O my joy.
Nothing my tongue could say, only my joy!
My heart an echo caught,
O my joy and spake,
Tell me thy thought,
Hide not thy joy.
My eyes can peer around.

O my joy, what beauty hast thou found?
Shew us thy joy.
My jealous ears grew whist; O my joy.

Music from heaven is’t, 
Sent for our joy?
She also came and heard; O my joy,
What, said she, is this word?
What is thy joy?

And I replied, O see,
O my joy, ‘Tis thee I cried, ‘tis thee:
Thou art my joy.

If Music be the Food of Love 
David Dickau (b. 1953)
Text by Henry Heveningham (1651–1700)

If music be the food of love,
Sing on till I am fill'd with joy
For then my list'ning soul you move
To pleasures that can never cloy.
Your eyes, your mien, your tongue declare
That you are music ev'ry where.

Pleasures invade both eye and ear,
So fierce the transports are, they wound,
And all my senses feasted are,
Tho' yet the treat is only sound,
Sure I must perish by your charms,
Unless you save me in your arms.

Song is the Infinite Time of Times 
Giselle Wyers
Text by Michel Khalil Helayel
conducted by Leah Wyman

Through out time,
Song is the infinite time of times.
Through out time,

Song bears the suffering and joy of its time.
In each place, in each life,
Song is already there. 

Song has a Bird for Rhythm 
Giselle Wyers
Text by Michel Khalil Helayel

Song has a bird for rhythm,
Song lives in blue sky.
Birds never abandon song.

Song birds who carry,
Story lines from our hands. 
Birds who record their symphonies,
In the seeds of days to come.
Song is the rhythm of the wind

Song birds who carry,
Story lines from our hands. 
Birds who record their symphonies,
In the seeds of days to come.

The high seas of nostalgia, Ah.

Asimbonanga (Mandela)
(South African freedom song)
Johnny Clegg (1953–2019) and Savuka (South African band formed in 1986) 
arr. Marshell Lombard and Bernard Kruger
conducted by Marshell Lombard
Alexander Nam Nguyễn, tenor
Jessica Turner, Anmol Kaur, Sophie Root, Maya Shah & Akhila Narayanan, sopranos

"Concord" from Songs from ‘Gloriana’ 
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
Text by William Plomer (1903–1973)

Concord, Concord is here,
Concord is here our days to bless.
And this our land to endue,
With plenty, peace and happiness.
Concord, Concord and Time,
Concord and time each needeth each:
The ripest fruit hangs where not one,
Not one, but only two,
Only two can reach. 

Lux Aeterna
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)

—  INTERMISSION —

…the love from me, to you.
CHAMBER SINGERS
Dr. Geoffrey Boers, conductor
Serena Chin, collaborative pianist
Tiffany Walker and Timothy Little, assistant conductors

My Flight For Heaven 
Blake R. Henson (b. 1983) 
Text by Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

Charm me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers,
That, being ravish’d, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head,
And make my bed.
Thou Pow’r canst sever from me this ill,
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers, 
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o’er the flowers.
Melt, melt my pains 
With thy soft strains;
That, having ease me giv’n, 
With full delight
I leave this light,
And take my flight
For Heaven 

Dará la notte il sol
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
Text by Scipione Agnelli (1586–1653)

Lao Rahal Soti 
Samih Choukeir (b. 1957)
arr. Shireen Abu Khader
Music and Text by Samih Choukeir, sung in Arabic
Tiffany Walker, soloist

If my voice departs, your throats (i.e. voices) will not
I look unto tomorrow and my heart is with you
If the singer goes (dies), the songs will remain
Bringing together the broken and suffering hearts

Cells Planets
Erika Lloyd, arr. Vince Peterson
Music and Text by Erika Lloyd (Little Grey Girlfriend)
Anjali Chudasama and Jessica Turner, soloists

So far away, far away,
When all will shine and all will play,
Hey.
The stars will open up and all will be 
Tiny pieces of galaxy
Reflected in you and me.

Cells, planets, same thing.
Bright electric lights on all the leaves
And everything growing from a tree;
(the) water’s blood, and roots are veins.

I don’t know you, but I like you.
I don’t know you, but I miss you.
I don’t know you, but I need you.

Smallest is the biggest thing, 
And in all the world, 
The love is the love from me to you

I don’t know you, but I like you.
I don’t know you, but I miss you.
I don’t know you, but I need you.

Cells, planets, same thing.

No Color
Stacey V. Gibbs (b. 1964) & Shawn Kirchner (b. 1970)

No color can come between us,
No shade to be thrown,
No tone be taken to demean us,
No hue of hate to be shown,
No color, no shade, no tone;
Let me be transparent with you.

Whose history is whose?
Who’s walking in whose shoes?
Who’s making whose rules?
Who’s learning in whose schools?
Whose history, whose shoes, whose rules?
Let me be transparent with you.

More love is our intention,
Stop—did we forget to mention that
We are more alike than we are different?
United we take a stand,
Ignited with hand in hand,
To build a band of harmony.
No time to wait, don’t hesitate!

Within me there’s a love so strong,
Within me there’s a hope to belong,
Within me there’s a fire to right all wrongs.
Within me there’s a love to share,
Within me there’s a need to care,
Within my heart is a risk to dare. 

Metropolis
Matthew Lyon Hazzard (b. 1989)
Libretto extracted from Metropolis: New York by Jonathan Talberg (ASCAP)

Will you pick me up or should I meet you there?
Skyscrapers and tenements touching a lapis lazuli sky.
Our train fights its way along the bridge,
Water everywhere, towers and smokestacks,
Rattle, clank, fits and starts.

The ancient car rumbles and drops again.
I bounded out and ran up steps that climb forever.
A blast of cold air and blaring horns hit me.

Tourists screaming with glee under buildings so tall you can’t see their crowns.
Cars and bar and starlit lounges,
Backpacks and violin cases.
Shows and raves and dipping underground.
Headphones… A magazine…

Neon and screens, marquees and dreams…
Grandma in a babushka, curious children,   a boom-box, teenagers!
Some come to work, some come to play and we’re definitely here to play.

You can see through the trees to the other side of the park,
Spying glimpses of love.
A couple snuggling on a bench,
Talking and plotting, planning and dreaming amidst the lights.

They’re holding hands.
A knowing glance.
Her eyes looking into his.
Their sighs, their lips, a knee against a knee.
A hand that lingers.
It’s touch amidst all these towers that makes it bearable.

Twenty generations have come of age in this City of Strangers.
Four hundred years of songs sung mostly by long gone neighbors.
It’s not wond’ring which stop to take to get off at Broadway
That makes people want to live here.

It’s searching for people who bring you alive that makes
The City vibrate and thrive.
It’s love, the pure substance, pulling us back now and then,
Bringing us homeward, again and again.