Chamber Singers and University Chorale: The Promise of Living

The Chamber Singers (Geoffrey Boers, director) and University Chorale (Giselle Wyers, director) present their Winter Quarter concert. The UW Choirs welcome Kamiak High School Choir, making a guest appearance on this concert featuring repertoire from England, Sweden, Indonesia, Latvia and elsewhere.

Program

Kamiak High School 

NANCY J. DUCK-JEFFERSON, conductor 

The Conversion of Saul - Z. Randall Stroope 

Way Over in Beulah Lan’ - Stacey Gibbs 

University Chorale

Giselle Weyers, director
SERENA CHIN, piano 
SCOTT FIKSE, NICHOLAS RENAUD, and HELEN WOODRUFF, Graduate Teaching Assistants 

Like As the Hart - Herbert Howells (1892 – 1983) 

I denna ljuva sommartid (In this Sweet Summertime) - Clark William Lawlor (b. 1980) 

Nachtlied - Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) 
Nicholas Renaud, conductor 

The Storm from The Seasons - Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) 
Helen Woodruff, conductor 

Hela Rotan - Indonesian folk song, arr. Ken Steven (b. 1993) 

Chamber Singers

Geoffrey Boers, director
SERENA CHIN, piano 
INGRID VERHULSDONK, rehearsal accompanist 
CLARA JOHNSON, MICHAEL MCKENZIE, and EVAN NORBERG, Graduate Teaching Assistants 
 

Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina Lord my God, assist me now Il Padre: G.B. Martini (1706-1784)
Evan Norberg, conductor

Mass for Double Choir Frank Martin (1890-1974) 
1. Kyrie
2. Gloria 

Hymn to St. Cecelia: Benenjamin Britten (1916-1976) 

Unclouded Day: Shawn Kirchner (b. 1970) 
Clara Johnson, conductor 

Sacred Place: Alex Berko (b. 1995)
IV. Mi Shebeirach  

Program Note

A Note from Geoffrey Boers
Welcome to tonight’s program The Promise of Living. Ever heard the saying “Growing old is not for the faint of heart?” In some ways a “promise” of living is that life is full of mountaintop experiences and also deep challenges. Another “promise” is that life is best when it is shared—with friends and loved ones, communities of like minded people, family, and the creation around us. Tonight’s program reflects these promises in a variety of ways.

Our second half program explores lifetime connections of faith, friendship, work, community, and creation. The set begins with a work nearly 300 years old, Martini’s motet, Domine, as adjuvandum me. Even as a solemn anthem and prayer for help, Martini utilized dance-like rhythms popular in that time. The result is a reverent yet celebratory “sac-ular” (not a word, but a portmanteau of sacred and secular) song. Next we sing two movements of Frank Martin’s remarkable Mass for Double Choir. Though the work uses the texts of the Roman Catholic rite, the work was written to expressive beauty and depth. He wrote this profound and orchestral work in the early 1920’s as a “vocal-orchestra” expression of sheer beauty. He deemed it too hard and humbly (and incorrectly )assumed no one could perform this work. So he stuck the manuscript in his desk where it laid for four decades. It was not until just before the end of his life that the work was performed and then published. It is a hugely popular work among professional choirs, and we are honored (and challenged) to sing for you tonight.

At the outbreak of WWII poet William Auden and his soon to be famed partner Benjamin Britten left England and came to America to escape the war. Though both were pacifists, two years later they felt compelled to return and help their country as they could. On the boat crossing the Atlantic, Auden penned his poem Anthem, an ode to St. Cecelia, the patron saint of musicians, and also a symbolic letter to his lover. Britten later set the poem as Hymn to St. Cecelia as a set of three songs or sections, adjoined by the prayer “ Blessed Cecelia, appear in visions to all musicians, appear and inspire. Translated daughter come down and startle composing mortals with immortal fire.” The first song refers to a fourth century nun, Sister Cecelia, who served in Rome, and is purported to have invented the organ. Images of a swan not singing until its death, the creation of an organ sound, are all images related to Sir Benjamin. The second song is a sonic flight worthy of a Midsummer’s Night Dream! “I cannot grow” “I only play” “when (we) know (we) can now do nothing by suffering” flit and float, and call out to Britten to be inspired, grow deeply, be more positive, more creative. In the final section the choir sings sustained tones as a final conversation between the lovers, as if they have become the organ. The instruments of the orchestra come to life and are given qualities of the living—first a violin, a timpani, a flute, a trumpet—all calling to be healed and inspired.

Unclouded day is an early American Christian camp hymn. The idea of an unclouded sky came from Reverend Josiah Alwood who, in 1879 was riding home one evening when he spotted a rainbow–in an unclouded sky! Seeing there was just one small rain cloud that created this rainbow, he felt that seeing a rainbow at night in an unclouded sky was a miracle. He awoke the next day and wrote this hymn. A happy and enthusiastic song, it speaks of the joy and beauty of a “ Heavenly home.” Shouts of heavenly joy were commonplace at this time where parents so often buried their children and lives were often short. 

We close with movement four of Alex Berko’s remarkable Sacred Place. While not a sacred work in the religious sense,(perhaps another “sacular” work), Berko captures the “sacredness” of the world around us and in the relationships we share. The fourth movement is Mi Shebeirach, a Jewish blessing of healing for the whole body. A “promise” of living is that bodies—be they our own, or a corporate “body” sometimes experience dis-ease. Our “body-politic,” our post-covid culture, our economy are all bodies experiencing dis-ease. May this be a blessing, a source of strength, and a Promise of Living for you. 

Biographies

Nancy Duck Jefferson, conductor

Nancy Duck Jefferson earned her B.A. in Music Education at Pacific Lutheran University and her M.A. in Music Education from the University of Washington. In 1999 she became Choral Director at Kamiak High School, a position she still holds. An active member of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) and Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA) , she was the organization’s 2017 High School Music Educator of the Year, chosen for her “strength and quality of work, for her long-term and extensive leadership at the regional and state level, and as a powerful advocate for music direction.”  In 2018 she was inducted into the WMEA Hall of Fame.