TEXT & PROGRAM NOTES
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
Music: composed in 1991 by Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)
Publisher: Novello & Company Limited, 1969
Eleanor Daley (b. 1955) is one of Canada’s most prolific and most-performed choral composers, with more than 100 pieces to her credit. She is particularly known for her music for mixed choirs and women’s voices. She has a bachelor’s degree in organ performance from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and diplomas in piano and organ from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and Trinity College in Cambridge, England. Her 1991 score Gloria in Excelsis Deo, which opens this weekend’s concerts, was written for the Senior Choir at Fairlawn Avenue United Church in Toronto, where she has served as Director of Music since 1982.
Angels We Have Heard on High
Music: Alice Parker (b. 1925) and Robert Shaw (1916–1999)
Publisher: First published in 1958
Alice Parker and Robert Shaw are two of the most famous names in 20th-century American choral music, Parker for her versatile and extremely prolific output as a composer, Shaw for his pioneering work as a conductor and teacher, principally with groups such as the Robert Shaw Chorale and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, of which he was founding director. Together, Parker and Shaw collaborated on more than 200 arrangements of a wide variety of melodies, including Christmas carols, folk songs, sea shanties, spirituals, and hymns. Their arrangement of Angels We Have Heard on High (setting an English translation by James Chadwick of words of unknown French origin) was first published in 1958.
The Huron Carol
Music: Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)
Text: Jean de Brébeuf and Jesse Edgar Middleton
Publisher: First published in 2005
The Huron Carol is considered Canada’s oldest Christmas song, written ca. 1642 by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary associated with the French Jesuit settlement of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, which was active from 1639–1649 and situated near what is today the town of Midland, Ontario. The carol’s melody is based on the French folk song Une Jeune Pucelle, which was set to new English words by the Canadian journalist and musicologist Jesse Edgar Middleton in 1926. Eleanor Daley’s setting of the Huron Carol dates from 2005.
Gaudete!
Music: Traditional carol, arranged by Annabel Rooney (b. 1973)
Publisher: First published in 1582 in Piae Cantiones
The traditional carol Gaudete is thought to have been written sometime in the 16th century and was first published in the 1582 collection Piae Cantiones. The arrangement featured in this weekend’s concerts, a modern take on a medieval dance, is a contemporary setting by English composer Annabel Rooney. She studied music at Christ’s College, Cambridge with an emphasis on cello performance, graduating with a Masters in Philosophy and a PhD on eighteenth-century opera.
Kujichagulia
Music: Zanaida Stewart Robles (b. 1979)
Publisher: Adapted for six-part mixed chorus by Ben Owen
Active as a composer, soloist, and teacher, Zanaida Stewart Robles received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music, a Master of Music from CSU Northridge, and a Bachelor of Music from CSU Long Beach. Currently, she serves as director of music at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, California, and as a performing arts instructor and choir director at Harvard–Westlake High School in Studio City. An advocate for diversity and inclusion in music education and performance, Ms. Robles is also heavily involved as an advocate for diversity and inclusion in music education and performance. Her setting of Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), the second of the seven principles of Kwanzaa, is a celebratory work marked by a driving djembe accompaniment. Originally written for three-part women’s chorus, Cincinnati Camerata’s artistic director, Ben Owen, has adapted the piece for six-part mixed chorus for these concerts.
The World’s Desire
Music: Eleanor Daley (b. 1955)
Text: G.K. Chesterton
Publisher: First published in 2005
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) is principally known for his poetry and as the creator of the Roman Catholic priest–turned amateur detective Father Brown, who appeared in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936. Eleanor Daley’s The World’s Desire sets the Chesterton poem A Christmas Carol (also known under the title The Christ Child Lay on Mary’s Lap). It was first published in 2005 and was written for the Halifax Camerata Singers and its artistic director, Jeff Joudrey; Daley also dedicated the piece to fellow Canadian composer Robert Joseph Burke.
Hark! The Herald Angels from the Realms of Glory We Have Heard on High
Composer’s Note: As any church musician knows, planning music for the Advent and Christmas seasons is no small feat. There are vast amounts of hymns and carols to choose from. Many are uber-traditional must-sing “non-negotiables” (imagine leaving a Christmas Eve service without singing Silent Night!). Even more are lesser-known hidden-gem “should-sings,” usually beloved in one denominational tradition and unknown in others (in my opinion: Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending). A select few are the fruitcake-coded “shouldn’t-sing-but-people-keep-asking-for-thems” (no comment). Church musicians hold all of these in balance when they choose music for Advent and Christmas services. This piano duet arrangement came to me following a particularly lengthy Christmas music planning session in which the various carols began to blend together in my head. The tunes of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Angels from the Realms of Glory, and Angels We Have Heard on High (and perhaps one other) intermix with each other constantly, creating an unexpectedly seamless and joy-embodying piece of music. I hope you enjoy hearing this delightful franken-carol monstrosity as much as I enjoyed putting it together. –Ben Owen
Run, Toboggan, Run
Music: Abbie Betinis (b. 1980)
Text: Holly Windle
Publisher: Part of the Burt Family Carol Series
Abbie Betinis (b. 1980) is among the most recognized and performed contemporary choral composers working today. Currently serving as adjunct professor of composition at Concordia University–St. Paul in Minnesota, she is a two-time McKnight Artist Fellow and has received awards from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, and the Minnesota Music Educators Association. Run Toboggan Run, featured in this weekend’s concerts, was written as a part of her Burt Family Carol Series. Betinis is the grandniece of Alfred Burt, a composer best known today for carols such as Caroling, Caroling. Until his early death at the age of 34, Burt contributed 15 carols as a part of a family tradition of musical Christmas cards. Betinis continues that tradition here, setting a poem by Holly Windle.
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Music: Traditional carol
Publisher: Arrangement by Marilyn Shenenberger
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen is considered one of the oldest surviving Christmas carols, in addition to being one of the most popular. While its exact origins are difficult to pinpoint, the earliest surviving version dates from around the 1650s. The earliest use of the melody most often used today was probably in a rondo arrangement for fortepiano (an instrument which further evolved into today’s concert grand pianos) by the English composer Samuel Wesley, likely written in the early 19th century. Marilyn Shenenberger’s arrangement, featured in this weekend’s concerts, takes this carol in a jazzy direction through the use of chromatic harmonies and swung rhythms.
A Ceremony of Carols
Music: composed in 1942 by Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
Publisher: Faber Music, 1943
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) ranks among the 20th-century’s most recognizable and performed British composers whose music has become a mainstay of opera companies, orchestras, choirs, and solo recitalists. These include operas such as Peter Grimes (1945), The Rape of Lucretia (1946), The Turn of the Screw (1954), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960), and Death in Venice (1971); orchestral works such as the Simple Symphony (1934) and Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1946); and song cycles such as The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (1945), Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (1940), and Winter Words (1954), written for the voice of his musical and life partner, the tenor Peter Pears. Britten’s best-known choral works include his 1962 War Requiem (written for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral), the cantata Saint Nicholas (1948), Five Flower Songs (1950), Festival Te Deum (1945), Hymn to the Virgin (1930), Hymn to St. Cecilia (1942), and the choral suite A Boy Was Born (1934). A Ceremony of Carols, which closes out this weekend’s concerts, was written the same year as Hymn to St. Cecilia, as Britten was returning to England on a transatlantic voyage aboard the steamer MS Axel Johnson after an extended sojourn in America. Setting texts in Middle English, Latin, and Early Modern English found in the collection The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, the suite sets nine carols initially conceived as individual songs unrelated from each other. These are anchored by a setting of the Gregorian chant Hodie Christus natus est, which acts as a processional, as well as a central interlude for solo harp. Originally written for three-part SSA voices and harp, Cincinnati Camerata will sing an arrangement for SATB chorus and harp made by the English composer and conductor Julius Harrison (1885–1963).